{"id":51105,"date":"2026-07-11T22:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=51105"},"modified":"2026-07-11T22:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:05:16","slug":"south-africa-world-cup-midfielder-adams-dies-at-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/south-africa-world-cup-midfielder-adams-dies-at-25\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa World Cup midfielder Adams dies at 25"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><div class=\"modal-header\">\n<div class=\"modal-title\">\n<p>South African midfielder Jayden Adams, who represented his country at the ongoing World Cup, died Saturday at the age of 25, Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is with profound shock and a heavy heart that I have learnt of the passing of Jayden Adams,&#8221; McKenzie said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;South African football has lost one of its brightest young talents.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The minister did not disclose a cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>Police said they had opened an investigation after the body of a 25-year-old man was found at a house in Schotschekloof, a suburb in central Cape Town, on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Circumstances surrounding this incident are under investigation,&#8221; Western Cape police spokesperson FC van Wyk told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>Adams played in all three of South Africa&#8217;s group-stage matches at the tournament but did not feature in the knockout defeat by Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Born in Cape Town, he began his professional career with Stellenbosch FC before joining CAF Champions League winners Mamelodi Sundowns in January 2025.<\/p>\n<p>His death comes less than a month after the passing of his grandmother, on the eve of South Africa&#8217;s Group A match against Czechia at Atlanta Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jayden started in the match against Czechia and gave his all while carrying the burden of losing his grandmother,&#8221; the South African Football Association said at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African midfielder Jayden Adams, who represented his country at the ongoing World Cup, died Saturday at the age of 25, Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said. &#8220;It is with profound shock and a heavy heart that I have learnt of the passing of Jayden Adams,&#8221; McKenzie said in a statement. &#8220;South African football has lost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51107,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51105\/revisions\/51107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}