HIS TIME IS UP AT SPURS
Bale is a Champions League player in a Europa League side
ON Sunday evening, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy spent sometime relaxing at his impressive Hertfordshire home. He had just flown back from the Barclays Asia Trophy in Hong Kong and enjoyed a moment of quiet reflection before getting down to the serious business of Gareth Bale’s future.
At the end of last season, after a fifthplaced finish in the Barclays Premier League, Levy told key personnel that his £85million asset would not be sold. His tone — and the manner of his delivery — surprised many. The message was simple: Bale would not be leaving.
Yesterday, as he took soundings from Tottenham’s inner sanctum, he started playing the numbers game for the first time since he realised his star player is slipping away.
Last September, Spurs moved into a spectacular new training facility set in 77 acres of parkland on Hotspur Way in Enfield. It cost £48m, a huge commitment for a club outside the Champions League, and is the envy of European football’s top clubs. Work has also begun on the first stage of a planned 56,000seat stadium — an increase of around 20,000 — which Spurs hope will generate the revenue to compete with the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal.
Levy is aware that if Real Madrid deliver on the mooted record-breaking transfer fee for Bale, the club would have a chunk of change to invest in players and the new infrastructure at White Hart Lane. But the chairman has much to consider in the coming days.
The brutal fact is that Spurs have not kept pace with the Welshman’s dramatic transformation from a raw and inconsistent youngster to a stellar talent. And £85m would be a remarkable return for a player they nearly lent to Nottingham Forest and Birmingham in 2009.
As ever with Spurs, they have been slow to bring in other targets and there will be a premium on these if they take Real Madrid’s money. They are already over-paying for £26m Roberto Soldado — a striker Valencia offered them in January for £15m.
Spurs manager Andre Villas-Boas has a fascination with Brazilian players and Atletico Mineiro winger Bernard is on his radar, but they will have to move fast, with FC Porto looking close to a deal.
The sense of shock among Spurs fans is all the greater as Bale, who has become the face of BT Sport’s Premier League promotions — including a giant poster in New York’s Times Square for NBC’s coverage — had seemed settled on staying for one more season.
Indeed, in a recent interview with Match of the Day magazine, he was talking positively about another push for the Champions League and even suggested a title challenge this season.
Now he seems ready to leave all that behind in pursuit of a move to the Bernabeu.
There has been a noticeable shift in the forward’s attitude, particularly
WHEN Nottingham Forest wanted to take him on loan at the City Ground, Bale had to be persuaded to stay and tough it out at Tottenham.
The turning point in his career was at the San Siro in October 2010 when Harry Redknapp pulled his coaching staff into a side room off the visitors’ dressing room at half-time.
Spurs were down to 10 men after Heurelho Gomes was sent off and were losing 4-0 by the time Redknapp could talk to his players. When one of the coaches suggested replacing Bale to ‘save him for the weekend’ against Everton, Redknapp exploded in anger.
Bale stayed on the pitch and his devastating hat-trick against the European champions that night gave him the confidence to play the game on his terms.
Nearly three years on f rom that incredible evening in the Champions League, he has been offered the platform to display those talents on the grandest stage of all.
He is being talked about as the third best player in the world behind Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
They earn nearly four times his £80,000a-week wage at Spurs, but there is much more to this than money.
He is the PFA Young Player of the Year, the Players’ Player, the FWA Footballer of the Year and is always capable of showing his match-winning qualities.
For that reason, he is made for Real Madrid. when Real stepped up their interest in him at the end of last week.
He has spoken to enough people, gauged enough opinion from those he respects and trusts, to know that now is the time to make the move.
At the age of 24, Bale is a Champions League player in a Europa League team. Levy has been reminded about his astonishing development, an acceleration that no one could have predicted when he arrived from Southampton in 2007. He was disillusioned with the game and his confidence was crushed when he went through that remarkable 24game sequence in the Premier League without playing on a winning team.
When the run ended in a 5-0 victory over Burnley at White Hart Lane in September 2009, his manager Harry Redknapp admitted he had still been worried about putting Bale on as an 85th-minute substitute.