Bafana Bafana star Luke le Roux reveals why Kaizer Chiefs transfer did not materialise after interest from the Soweto giants and how Portsmouth FC won his signature

Luke le Roux completed a move to Championship side Portsmouth FC from Swedish outfit IFK Varnamo in July.

This came amid reports linking the midfielder with Kaizer Chiefs.

The 25-year-old says Amakhosi expressed interest in him but did not make a concrete offer. 

"So, there were talks and there were interests, but there was no concrete offer or anything from Kaizer Chiefs. I wouldn’t say that there were 100% offers or anything like that," Le Roux told KickOff magazine.
"The talks were there and the interests were there, but nothing really happened, and at that time, I was at the stage also where I was trying to stay in Europe and see how much and what I could get in Europe, and try to do my best away from home.
"I’m happy for this opportunity, I’m happy to have joined Portsmouth, so, yeah, let’s see how it goes, you never know what can happen in the future.
"So, it’s really a hard question to answer [being open to joining Chiefs], especially since we haven’t got to or we never reached that stage of them showing me their offer.
"But like I say, there were talks, there were interests, but nothing concrete, really, and nothing materialised out of that. So, I wouldn’t be able to say whether I would have done something or not when it didn’t come to that stage"

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos is an admirer of Le Roux and moving to a more competitive league might have further impressed the Belgian.

That enhances his chances of going to the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations finals, given he enjoys regular game time at Pompey.

The Stellenbosch-born star has so far made three appearances for Portsmouth across all competitions this season, starting one match while coming off the bench in the other two. 

After coming on as a substitute when Portsmouth edged Preston 1-0 on Saturday, Le Roux now heads home for international duty.

He is part of the Bafana squad for the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Lesotho and Nigeria.