It was being reported over the weekend that Brighton and Hove Albion had an interest in South African international striker Percy Tau.
The Sunday Times claimed that Brighton have already been knocked back three times in their chase for the 24-year-old and our most recent offer was in the region of R34million last Thursday.
Percy Tau begs #Sundowns to let him join English Premiership side. Find out which team made the offer, in the #SundayTimes tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/zdmPRdQBwe
— Sunday Times (@SundayTimesZA) June 23, 2018
Mamelodi Sundowns are unwilling to play ball though and are incredibly reluctant to sell, despite the player and his agent’s wishes. I have no idea about the reliability of this rumour but it has gained some traction online, and I know nothing about the player other than what a quick Google search throws up – it may be the case that we’re better off moving onto other targets if we do have an interest though as this seems to be an incredibly mucky situation given the agents claims.
With claims of the player not believing his future has been prioritised enough, suggestions that he’s not in a ‘good space’ to join pre-season training for the club and accusations of silence from the club president despite ‘several’ attempts at opening talks – well, the full situation for anyone interested is covered by Goal.
“We’ve had several meetings with Sundowns and two of them included the president. Around March, I was contacted by Brighton and we started engaging. Percy was very excited. We agreed that we will break the news to Sundowns after the Barcelona game. Brighton prepared an offer and I sent the offer to Yogesh Singh via email.”
The agent claims Singh asked for an increase saying he wouldn’t ‘even take this to the board’ and we did increase our offer.
“Brighton increased it to £2-million plus a 7.5% sell-on. Sundowns said increase the offer significantly.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help being sceptical here. All agents spin things for their clients and all agents use the media to their own advantage. But would an agent go so far as to call out members of a club board in this manner?
Would an agent disclose such financial information at this stage of the negotiations?
Yes, if Brighton have an interest no doubt there was an informal ‘is your client interested’ chat, but would Brighton really conduct the transfer with the agent and not the club – ie send her the offer to pass onto his employers?
Something just feels off about this to me.