Bale’s set to become Real cash burden
REAL MADRID’S decision to pull the plug on Gareth Bale’s £1million-a-week move to China is set to cost the Spanish giants a fortune.
Bale, 30, was set to become the highest-paid player in the game last year until Real decided to block his bank-busting deal with Nanjing-based Jiangsu Suning at the last minute.
Real are now looking to get the Welshman off the Bernabeu wage bill this summer, but the exit door to the Far East has been slammed shut by Chinese FA financial regulations brought in to bring through more homegrown players.
That means Madrid will now be forced to hand Bale a massive pay-off to leave the club – or agree to pay a significant chunk of his £600,000-aweek wages for the next two seasons.
There have so far been no takers for the former Tottenham star.
And that situation is unlikely to change, given the squeeze on transfer fees and wages that is likely to follow the current coronavirus crisis.
Bale has made it clear that he is happy to stay at the Bernabeu till his contract expires, but pressure is on the Spanish club to shift Bale.
A move to the MLS was mooted – but that would involve Real coming up with a financial compromise first.
THESE are not times to take serious issues personally, but I still suspect that, in his quieter moments, Pep Guardiola will think he’s cursed.
City are overwhelming favourites to win the Champions League… but will the competition now be completed?
I fear not, if the big leagues in Europe are ever going to complete their seasons before the next one kicks off.
If that’s the case, then there’s a real chance now Pep will go at least a decade without even getting to the final of the competition he looked set to make his own in 2011 when he took Barcelona to the trophy for the second time in three years.
It’s a bit mad, isn’t it, that he hasn’t been to the final since then?
When you think in that time he’s managed Barca, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, who arguably were the best teams in the world in his time with those clubs, it doesn’t add up.
I’m not enough of a legal expert – and I’m not sure watching LA Law on TV when I was a kid counts! – to wade into the rights and wrongs of UEFA’s two-year ban handed out to Manchester City recently.
But I do know the coronavirus crisis, which has engulfed the world and makes sporting matters seem so trivial, can have longer consequences for City than even threatening the Champions League being completed this season.
Their appeal over the ban cannot be heard at the moment because the body that will hear it, the Court of Arbitration in Sport, is not sitting – for obvious reasons.
With eight of the most powerful Premier League clubs arguing that City should not be allowed into European competition while any appeal is in progress, that could easily mean Pep (right) doesn’t get to manage a Champions League team next season. Unless he quits City. I’m not suggesting for a second he will and I think he’s gone on record as saying he’ll stay, but, in his quieter moments, I’m sure the situation will have given him plenty of food for thought. He’s there to win trophies and, in particular, I am absolutely sure he went there to win the Champions League for the club’s owners. And himself. In fact, he wants it so badly that it could have become an obsession.
If they void the competition this year and
City remain banned for two more years, then it’s 2023 before he can win it with them.
And that’s before the full implications of UEFA’s ban are