What CAN football do with MILLIONAIRE OUTCASTS?
GARETH BALE’S agent has no intention of sitting down with Real Madrid to discuss his client’s future even t hough t he Wales international has played just 102 minutes for the club in the last 11 games. ‘There is nothing to discuss’ is the line Bale and his team are sticking to as he prepares to travel to Manchester t his week for t he Champions League last-16 second leg against City.
He believes he has no chance of starting the game but the coldshoulder treatment from Zinedine Zidane is having no effect on Bale’s determination to entrench himself at a club who do not want him, cannot sell him and are committed to paying him one of the biggest salaries in football until 2022.
Bale’s last contract renewal in 2016 put him on €17million (£15.3m) net a season. Bonuses written into the deal mean winning the league this year will be factored into his salary next season, which will rise nearer to €19m (£17.1m)
Real Madrid players committed to a 10 per cent wage cut on April 8 and, with the new season set to start in Spain on September 12 still without spectators, the squad is due to negotiate a second cut.
But even after another reduction, Bale will remain on a salary that no one else will contemplate matching, so he is going nowhere.
THE player’s personality has made digging-in easy. He has always been singleminded. Complaints from managers in his early days at Tottenham that he would not play through the pain never served to diminish his determination to rule himself out of games when he was not 100 per cent.
There was another insight into how thick- skinned he is on the occasion of his Real Madrid debut in 2013. The television broadcaster who held the rights to La Liga matches at the time invited a small group of British journalists to Villarreal’s Madrigal stadium to watch Bale’s first game.
Bale scored in a 2-2 draw and was expected to speak to media who had made the trip but, when he walked out of the stadium through the press area post-match, he ignored all attempts to engage him and got straight on the team bus.
If he does not want to talk, he does not talk; if he does not feel he can play, he does not play; and if he does not want to walk away from a lucrative contract, he will not.
Madrid coach Zidane has a similar character. Frederic Hermel is the author of a recently published biography of the Frenchman. He has followed his career since 2001 when L’Equipe sent him to cover Zidane’s arrival at Real Madrid.
In a recent interview Hermel was asked what most defines Zidane’s personality and he replied: ‘ His rectitude. He is a guy who bases everything on trust. If you abuse that trust, he puts a cross next to your name and it’s over. He doesn’t forgive [that].’
Zidane did not like B ale’ s comments after the 2018 Champions League final that he ‘needed to play every week’ and that he would need to ‘sit down with his agent and take a decision’.
Never mind that Bale’s two goals had just won the final against Liverpool and saved Zidane his job, nor that Cristiano Ronaldo had also cast doubts on his future in a post-match interview. When Zidane left the club that summer, his desire to sell Bale and the club’s reluctance to do so was one of the reasons.
Reunited during Zidane’s second spell in charge, the coldness has remained. ‘If Gareth Bale can leave tomorrow then even better,’ said Zidane in a press conference last pre-season, stunning Bale who had expected more discretion.
Zidane had been told that Bale’s move to China was imminent and would be waved through by the board. Real Madrid were beaten in a friendly in New Jersey, by Atletico Madrid 7-3 and, with Zidane’s future looking fragile, the club U-turned on allowing Bale to move to Jiangsu Suning on a free transfer.
As Tony Kroos admitted in an interview last week, Bale has not forgotten the way he was publicly declared persona non grata before having his departure blocked.
Zidane and Bale’s relationship is a micable but t here is still a disconnect. The coach feels he does not see the application levels from Bale that justifies picking him ahead of young players such as Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo Goes. The player feels that, having won four Champions Leagues with Madrid — scoring in three of the finals, which Zidane only did once — he is not shown the respect he deserves.
Madrid could propose a free-transfer but the China option has faded and no one in the Premier League is willing to match his salary.
Whatever talks might take place this summer will have to be 100 per cent initiated by the club because Bale is more entrenched than ever as he feels he has achieved
everything he wanted in European football. He has even incurred the wrath of some of the club’s dignitaries. After pictures appeared of him joking about in the stands, mask over eyes, or pretending to look through a pair of binoculars, few were amused.
‘Bale is playing around,’ said Jorge Valdano, former Real player and coach. ‘But Madrid is not a game’.
Bale will not be affected by such criticism. He will be a spectator at the Etihad on Friday, that is if Zidane selects him to travel. Nothing in his frosty and expensive relationship with the club can be ruled out.