Mustapha pens new long term deal

Castleford Tigers are delighted to announce that Muizz Mustapha has signed an extension to his contract, keeping him at the club until the end of 2027!

Muizz Mustapha is sponsored by M&D Foundations

Recruitment news is brought to you by ORB Recruitment

Muizz joined the club from Leeds Rhinos 12 months ago and has since become a fan favourite with his name often sung from the stands at Wheldon Road. Since his arrival, he has made 3 starts and 13 appearances off the bench.

In October, Muizz signed an initial one-year extension after the option in his contract was activated by the club. Since then, the young forward has expressed his desire to commit to the club on a longer-term basis and has done by signing another new deal.

“I’m really pleased, it’s been a tough couple of years for me personally especially this year. I’m glad we managed to stay up and I’m able to stay at the club for the next few years and hopefully they’re a good few years.”

Muizz was asked what it means to him when the fans sing his name from the stands and paid tribute to the Tigers faithful.

“It’s surreal, I don’t see myself as anyone special, I just try my best and I think the fans can see that and I appreciate the support that they give me and for them to be singing a song about me, it’s a great feeling.”

“Preseason’s been tough this year, I think we’re taking on things that we struggled with last year and implement them into training and hoping to improve on these this year and fix up the areas where we weren’t good enough and all the lads are working hard to get into the best shape they can.”

When asked about his goals for the 2024 season, he outlined a clear desire to play as much as possible and do everybody proud.

“Probably to play more games than last year, it’s a simple goal but a difficult one as I’ve got to play well every week to keep my spot and contribute to the team in any way I can.”

Director of Rugby Operations, Danny Wilson spoke about how pleased he is that Muizz is staying with the club, and how the deal was made possible.

“We’re really excited to get this deal done, Muizz is a player we’ve targeted and he’s who we want to be at the club long term, everything we spoke about in the off season and pre-season is about our vision, DNA and the culture we’re trying to build and he’s a big part of that. Getting Muizz to agree to stay shows that he’s enjoying himself here and that he sees his future here at our club which is very exciting for us and we’re happy to get the deal done.”

“It's absolutely massive for us. We’ve got a plan, it’ll take time, but we know where we want to get to. We want to be successful in the long term, but we want the success to be sustainable and to do that you have to have investment from the right people we need to make sure they’re on the same page with our vision."

"Martin Jepson is on definitely the same page and it’s exciting as well as the rest of the board. Martin putting that investment in allows us to accelerate the retention of some of the players we have. Fletcher Rooney is a big example of that, and Muizz Mustapha is an example of the core group of players that we want to retain and make sure we achieve our plan and vision over the next few years.”