ORLANDO Pirates plan to celebrate their 75th anniversary in style next year with a second gold star by winning the African Champions League title.

Pirates chairperson Irvin Khoza is convinced they have assembled a well-oiled machine to emulate the success of their Class of 1995 who won the continental competition. The South African soccer giants are the only Southern Africa club to have won the Champions League, but at that time it did not offer prize money.

"We want to celebrate our 75th anniversary in a big way, winning the Champions League is our number one priority after sweeping the boards here at home," said Khoza.

The Pirates supremo said South African clubs should participate in and take the CAF competitions seriously as this would also have good spin-offs for the national teams.

"Our success in the Champions League in 1995 benefitted Bafana Bafana a great deal because of international exposure of the players featuring in CAF competitions. It did not come as a surprise that when Bafana Bafana won the Afcon the following year, the majority of our players were part of that team."

Pirates players in the Bafana squad of 1996 included Helman Mkhalele, Mark Fish, John Moeti and Edward Motale.

Commenting further on the 75th anniversary celebrations, Khoza said: "The most photographed player of Pirates, Kaizer Motaung, will be there.

"We will also have the most written-about player of Pirates, Jomo Sono, also in attendance. We are busy working on the preparations for the event."

On Saturday's Absa Premiership Soweto derby against Kaizer Chiefs, Khoza said: "I hope we will sustain our winning momentum over Chiefs and all the other clubs. It is all about the bragging rights.

"People were saying the derby has lost its spark but we had more than 92 000 people at Soccer City to watch the MTN8 final, it's a record crowd."