Tragedy has hit South African football, with senior team goalkeeper and captain Senzo Meyiwa shot and killed a few kilometres south of Johannesburg by unknown gunmen. The ugly incident occurred on Sunday.

The cause of the 27-year-old Orlando Pirates goalkeeper’s killing was not immediately clear but the South African Police Service (SAPS) tweeted: “We have to break normal protocol. We can confirm that Bucs ’keeper Senzo Meyiwa has been shot and sadly declared dead on arrival at hospital.”

The killers were said to be three in number. Two of them reportedly entered the house of the goalkeeper in the town of Vosloorus while the third accomplice waited outside.

According to South Africa police, the goalkeeper was inside his house with some other people and his shooting followed an altercation.

The police are investigating whether the assailants came to rob or whether they had other motives.

Meyiwa was the goalkeeper between the sticks when Nigeria played a goalless draw against the Bafana Bafana of South Africa in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier played in the South African city of Cape Town in September.

Meyiwa’s South African soccer club Orlando Pirates said in a statement that it “has learned with sadness about the untimely death of our number one goalkeeper and current captain Senzo

Meyiwa.”

“This is a sad loss whichever way you look at it to Senzo’s family, his extended family, Orlando Pirates and to the nation,” the Pirates chairman, Irvin Khoza, said.

•Photo, courtesy of SuperSport, shows late Meyiwa in action.