BALE BONANZA
He signs £108m six-year deal to stay at Real
GARETH BALE has agreed a new six-year contract at Real Madrid worth a staggering £108million, effectively ruling him out of a return to the Premier League.
Bale’s ‘deal for life’ takes him to 2022 when he will be 33 and restores his status as football’s third highest earner above Neymar, who renewed terms at Barcelona last month.
The Welshman will be paid £346,000 a week, or £18million a year, after tax. The highest earner in England is Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, who gets £290,000 a week before tax.
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Bale’s Real Madrid team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo remain out in front at around £19m a year net while Neymar’s recent
deal at Barcelona took him to an estimated £15m net. Real Madrid have recently given new deals to Luka Modric and Toni Kroos but Bale was the man whom president Florentino Perez was desperate to keep at the club. He will be presented as the player the 11-times European Cup winners intend to build their future around at a press conference at the Santiago Bernabeu today. The new contract will put an end to any lingering interest from Manchester United. Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman at Old Trafford, had already written off the club’s chances of signing Bale next summer because Real Madrid’s transfer ban would prevent them from buying a replacement. But the length of the contract underlines Real’s intention to make Bale their new flagship player for long after Ronaldo retires. Sportsmail understands Ronaldo remains Real’s top earner and will have his own deal extended in the next few days. Real are overhauling player contracts in the face of the transfer ban imposed for breaching rules governing the movement of players under 18. Significantly, Bale now moves above Neymar. His back-and-forth pay rivalry with the Brazilian looks set to eventually replace the top earner battle that has taken place between Ronaldo and Messi for the past six years. Neymar was rewarded with a new deal in July to ward off interest from Paris Saint-Germain. He signed last week after admissions from France that the Ligue 1 champions had tried to steal him away from Barcelona. Bale moved to the Spanish capital from Tottenham for a then world record £85m in 2013. He has since helped them to two Champions League triumphs. Bale has scored 50 league goals in 90 games for the club.