Bale confirms intention to return to Real Madrid
Plan was always to spend one season at Tottenham hhopes of playing in World Cup crucial for next move
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Gareth Bale has said he plans to end his Tottenham Hotspur stay and return to Real Madrid at the end of this season.
Bale has one year remaining on his contract in Spain and said his plan had always been to return to Madrid after this summer’s European Championship.
Bale’s long-term future has been a source of constant speculation, given the complete breakdown of his relationship with Real, and he has had a mixed campaign under Jose Mourinho at Spurs.
“There is no distraction for me,” said Bale, who will captain Wales in a World Cup qualifier against Belgium today. “The reason I came to Spurs this year was to play football first and foremost. Going into the Euros, I wanted to be match-fit.
“The original plan was to do a season at Spurs and after the Euros have a year left at Real Madrid. My plan is to go back.”
Bale struggled to earn Mourinho’s trust in the first half of this season, when he was still rebuilding his fitness after being marginalised by Real in the previous campaign.
He burst into form last month, though, scoring five goals in three matches for Tottenham. But he has started just one of the past four games, and struggled in Tottenham’s defeat by Arsenal in the north London derby.
“Over the last few years, this is probably the most match fitness I’ve had,” Bale said. “I’m feeling fresh and ready to go. I always think when things aren’t going too well at a club, it’s nice to get away, especially mentally, get away from the club environment.”
At its simplest level, there are three realistic options for Bale when his loan ends this summer. Go back to Madrid, stay at Tottenham or push for a transfer elsewhere. Of those, the third option appears to be the least likely. Bale turns 32 in July and he has 600,000 reasons per week (his earnings in pounds) to respect his contract at Madrid, even if his prospects of playing regularly in Spain appear as slim as ever. The respective futures of Zinedine Zidane and Mourinho could be crucial to Bale’s long-term situation. As for Bale’s worth at Tottenham, it will surely depend on how he finishes this season. But no one can claim that Bale, over the course of this season, has justified the £220,000 a week that Tottenham are paying him.
It is international football, however, that has brought the most enthusiasm out of Bale in recent years and the timing of the World Cup might be all-important. He could spend next season on the bench at Madrid, picking up his salary and enjoying regular rounds of golf, but that would leave him only a few months to rebuild his fitness before the Qatar World Cup in November 2022.