Percy Tau has no club as of 10 November 2026. Thep Xanh Nam Dinh released the South African winger on 21 May 2026, and no new signing had been announced when this piece was written. His salary has never been published by a club, so every money figure below is labelled as a wage demand, a report or an estimate.
| At a glance | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 May 1994, South Africa |
| Last club | Thep Xanh Nam Dinh, Vietnam, released 21 May 2026 |
| Status on 10 November 2026 | No new club announced |
| Bafana Bafana record | 52 caps, 16 goals as of 25 March 2025 |
| Published salary | None |
| Only figure on record | Said yes to R450,000 a month, about R5.4 million a year, in an undated interview |
| Net worth | No official figure; an online estimate of $9 million from 2023 |
Released by Nam Dinh in May 2026
Tau arrived in Vietnam as a free agent after leaving Qatar SC, and the signing was announced in August 2025.
The season went very badly.
He played 22 matches in all competitions, scored once and set up four goals, and that single goal came after 16 matches without one, in a 1-1 home draw against Hong Linh Ha Tinh on 9 February 2026.
Nam Dinh finished sixth and began clearing its foreign quota. Panafrica Football reported that Tau had missed the last seven league fixtures through a spell on the sidelines, though the nature of the problem was never stated.
From Sundowns to Qatar
It was a long road.
Mamelodi Sundowns gave him two league titles, in 2013/14 and 2017/18. Brighton and Hove Albion signed him on a four-year deal on 20 July 2018, at a reported fee of about £2.7 million that the club never confirmed.
A work-permit problem kept him away. He made three Premier League appearances for Brighton and spent the rest of the contract on loan at Union Saint-Gilloise, where he was named Proximus League Player of the Season, at Club Brugge, where he won the 2019/20 league, and at Anderlecht.
Al Ahly made the move permanent on 26 August 2021. In Cairo he won two CAF Champions League titles and two Egyptian league titles, and he was named CAF Inter-Club Player of the Year in 2023. Qatar SC followed in January 2025. Nine league games, no goal.
Where Bafana Bafana stand
Tau made his debut on 17 October 2015 against Angola. He had 52 caps and 16 goals as of 25 March 2025. At the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, where South Africa finished third, he played 565 minutes and scored once, according to Sportmonks data. He also missed a penalty in the opening defeat by Mali, a night we covered in our report on the game.
Hugo Broos left him out of the squads until 13 March 2025, when the Belgian recalled him for the World Cup qualifiers against Lesotho and Benin. Hugo Broos had said in September 2024 that Tau was not mentally ready for the games against Uganda and South Sudan. We could not find a later call-up. Broos himself is covered in our Hugo Broos profile, and the men who have scored since are in our list of Bafana top scorers.
What is known about his pay
Nobody has published a Tau salary. Not one club. Al Ahly, Qatar SC and Nam Dinh have not released contract terms.
The one number on record is an answer, not an invoice. Soccer Bullet reported on 7 November 2026 that, in an undated interview with Robert Marawa, Tau said “Perfect, yes” when asked if he would accept two years at R450,000 a month with an option to extend. Over twelve months that is R5.4 million. Over the two years offered it is R10.8 million.
The net worth figure is thinner still. One online estimate from 2023 put it at $9 million, before the Qatar and Vietnam moves, and it is an estimate, not a disclosed fortune.
On family, there is no public record of a wife or children.
Minutes per goal since 2023
| Season | Competition | Club or team | Apps | Minutes | Goals | Minutes per goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Africa Cup of Nations | South Africa | 6 | 565 | 1 | 565 |
| 2023/24 | Egyptian Premier League | Al Ahly | 10 | 501 | 7 | 72 |
| 2024/25 | Egyptian Premier League | Al Ahly | 6 | 235 | 0 | none |
| 2024/25 | CAF Champions League | Al Ahly | 6 | 90 | 3 | 30 (excluded from totals) |
| 2024/25 | Qatar Stars League | Qatar SC | 9 | 747 | 0 | none |
| 2025/26 | V.League 1 | Nam Dinh | 7 | 455 | 1 | 455 |
The first five rows come from Sportmonks. The Nam Dinh row comes from a league listing that counts 7 matches and leaves out the ASEAN Club Championship games, whereas Wikipedia counts 9 league matches, so treat that row as approximate.
We left the Champions League row out of the totals, because the sheet logs only 90 minutes across six appearances, two of them starts, which looks incomplete. Add up the four league rows and Tau scored 8 goals in 1,938 minutes, one every 242 minutes. The split is what matters. At Al Ahly in 2023/24 he scored every 72 minutes. Once he left Egypt, 1,202 minutes in Qatar and Vietnam produced one league goal.
The numbers point one way.
He needs a league where he starts every week. It is a short list. A return to the Premiership would put him back in the conversation for Bafana, where younger names such as Relebohile Mofokeng are already established, but a club will have to decide that the R450,000 a month he said yes to is worth paying for a 32-year-old with one goal in a season.
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