Kaizer Chiefs Football Club announced their decision to retire late member Luke Fleur’s number 26 jersey.
Luke Fleurs was a centre-back signed under the club, but his dream of becoming the greatest soccer player of all time was short-lived when he lost his life in a hijacking at a petrol station in Johannesburg.
As reported by iDiski Times during Luke’s memorial service, the Kaizer Chiefs sporting director, Kaizer Motaung Jr. said:
“Our new normal the last couple of days or since last week when we come to the village we look at the empty seat where he’d sit in our change room, in our technical centre before our team meetings, in the meal room which we call Taung and of course in the corridors at the village.”
Motaung Jr added that his father, the club’s executive chairman, Dr Kaizer Motaung, agreed to retire Luke’s number 26 jersey, as they believed it was the right thing to do
This announcement received a mixed reaction from X (previously known as Twitter) users as they felt that retiring the jersey of a player who has never played an official match before was unnecessary.
???????@KaizerChiefs will retire jersey number 26 in honour of the late #LukeFleurs.#UNPLAYABLE pic.twitter.com/vYxBV2jT0N
— #UNPLAYABLE (@UnplayableZA) April 11, 2024
One user commented:
So they will retire every jersey when their player lose life? Did he even play an official game? This doesn’t make sense at all.
— 217Fans (@SollyMongs) April 11, 2024
One user posed a question:
Painful to lose a good player
But retiring a shirt number???? For someone who never played an official game???
— Remembering Sipho Nunens (@UptightForever) April 11, 2024
Another user said fans cannot decide how the club honours their fallen soldier.
You can’t decide how best the club should honour him. There is nothing strange about this.
— Welile Maphanga (@Diwewem) April 11, 2024
An X user felt the decision taken by the club was good.
Its a nice gesture to honor Luke,
Whether he wore it or not is neither here nor there, that was his allocated number, and in his honor it has been retired.
Thank you @KaizerChiefs for honoring the boy.— Prince EM (@_prince_em) April 11, 2024
Also see: Internet mourns death of Kaizer Chiefs star Luke Fleurs
