LEVY LOVES MADRID’S MILLIONS

TOTTENHAM and Real Madrid have previous when it comes to the Spanish giants cherry-picking the club’s best talent.

And Spurs chairman Daniel Levy (right) has never been reluctant to cash in when Real have come calling.

It was August 2012 when Luka Modric, then Spurs’ creative fulcrum, left White Hart Lane for the Bernabeu for a fee in the region of £30million. He had signed a six-year contract only two years previously.

Madrid hailed that deal as the start of a closer relationship between the two clubs – although the traffic has been largely one-way.

The following summer Gareth Bale followed Modric to the Spanish capital. Tottenham’s heads were turned by a then world-record fee of £85m despite Wales forward Bale’s emergence as the White Hart Lane club’s most outstanding performer. “I know many players talk of their desire to join the club of their boyhood dreams, but I can honestly say, this is my dream come true,” said Bale after the deal had gone through. Bale had scored 21 goals for Spurs the previous season and his departure left a gaping hole that took the best part of three years to fill. And if Real come knocking again then it’s hard to see the club saying no to a similarly astronomical offer.