Wednesday saw the return of Percy Tau speculation for Brighton and Hove Albion.
With highly questionable speculation recently linking us with the Mamelodi Sundowns forward, two identical reports on different websites from the same writer whose based in Russia at the moment given the World Cup, claimed that we have now returned with a final ‘take it or leave it’ offer for the 24-year-old player.
Times Live were one outlet, I’m linking the other given the identical nature involved as frankly I’d be amazed if there was anything in this.
They say we have made a R50million offer that could rise to R65million for the attacker and that would be a record-breaking fee, easily surpassing any previous deal for a South African footballer apparently.
Shy of £3million I believe when converted to Sterling.
My doubt comes in on the claim that we will walk away if the offer is not accepted within 24 hours, namely because they reference a ‘representative of the club’ who has freely told them that, and the specifics of our bid, so the outlet could have an exclusive. That it ran twice – under two different newspaper names changing only the ‘paper’ this opened mouthed representative spoke to in the text.
Why our representative would be out in Russia whilst dealing with a South African football team also leaves my head spinning, but I’m naturally cynical. Especially as we would have significant work permit issues as well I would think.
It’s gaining traction on the interweb again though, so only fair to point out the red flags in the reporting which scream ‘click bait’ to me. It appears we may have an interest and if we do somebody is clearly leaking, but this isn’t a club representative by any stretch – it’s the player and his agent because he’s already refusing to attend pre-season training based on reports and in itself should be a red flag.