BALE COULD BECOME WORLD’S HIGHEST PAID FOOTBALLER
...but alarm bells ring for Wales over China move:
GARETH Bale remains “one of the best players on the planet” and will not be leaving Real Madrid on a “makeshift” deal, according to his agent.
Los Blancos head coach Zinedine Zidane has denied showing a lack of respect towards the Wales forward, who appears on the verge of a departure from the Spanish club.
Zidane said Bale did not play against Bayern Munich last weekend because he did not want to as his future remains unresolved.
Former Tottenham forward Bale, 30, trained with the rest of the Real Madrid squad on Monday ahead of the pre-season International Champions Cup fixture against Arsenal.
Zidane told reporters that he would always back his players, after facing criticism over comments about Bale’s potential departure.
Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett had labelled Zidane a “disgrace” over the handling of his client, and maintains any transfer will be done in the best interests of the Welshman. “There will be no makeshift deals to get him out of the club. Gareth is one of the best players on the planet. I can guarantee you he will not be going on loan to any club,” Barnett said to Sky Sports News.
“Gareth is a Real Madrid player and for now he is staying at Real Madrid.
“If something comes along that suits us, then things could change and he could be gone in a day or a week, or he could still be a Real player in three years when his contract ends.”
At a press conference on Monday ahead of the Arsenal friendly at FedExField in Maryland, Zidane told reporters he wanted to be “very clear” about the situation.
“What I said the other day is that the club was working on his exit,” Zidane said.
“Gareth didn’t come on (against Bayern Munich) because he didn’t want to. He said that the club was working on his exit and that’s why he didn’t come on.”
“The club is doing what it has to and that’s all there is to it.”
MONEY Can’t Buy You Love, sang the Beatles, but making him the highest-paid footballer in the world could land Gareth Bale for the Chinese Super League.
The £1million-a-week wage reputedly on the table from Jiangsu Sunning and Beijing Guoan – yes, I had to Google them too – would see Bale eclipse Lionel Messi as the game’s top earner.
For the record, the reported weekly figures would be as follows: Bale £1m, Messi £900k, Cristiano Ronaldo £850k, Antoine Griezmann £725k, Neymar £675k, Luis Suarez £625k. Very nice money if you can get it. Whose head would not be turned by the prospect of a seven-figure lottery figure nestling into your bank account every week?
But, but, but... there is a massive BUT here for Bale. And in particular
for the Wales team he has represented with such distinction over a glittering 13-year international career.
Ryan Giggs would never be presumptuous enough to tell any of his players where to play their club football, particularly when there are a million very good reasons for Bale to head to Asia.
But alarm bells are already ringing, with the manager of Wales facing the prospect of his best player plying his trade 5,000 miles across the globe in a league which, while big on ambition, can’t remotely be said to be high in quality when compared to Europe’s top divisions.
He’s not going to improve as a footballer out there, is he? Nor will Wales’ prospects of reaching the next World Cup be enhanced by the possibility of their talisman lowering his week-in, week-out standards of play.
Bale is very different to players like Javier Mascherano, Carlos Tevez, Ricardo Carvalho and Jon Obi Mikel who each enjoyed the riches of the Chinese Super League when their best days were well and truly behind them.
We may never again see the swashbuckling Gareth Bale who drove Wales to Euro 2016 with perhaps the most effective set of performances witnessed in the history of the Dragons shirt. But, having only just turned 30, he is still a worldclass footballer and those talents need to be shining on the biggest stage.
For club and for country. Bale’s treatment by Real Madrid, and a section of the boo-brigade fan base, has bordered on the obscene in the eyes of many.
Myself included.
It’s been downright unfair and way over the top. What’s happened is bound to have sapped Bale’s energy.
Wales saw that first-hand themselves in June with below-par Bale performances during the Euro 2020 qualifiers with Croatia and Hungary.
He still has three years to go on an extremely lucrative Real Madrid contract.
Why should he be forced out and expected to suddenly take a massive pay cut? At least China would enable him to balance the books, so to speak.
However, this is a complex situation and Bale can’t let what is happening affect his football judgement. He still has two major goals to achieve in the sport – winning the Premier League and playing at a World Cup.
Time and again we’ve witnessed just what the FAW crest on the famous red shirt means to Bale. By modern-day standards, he gets a pittance for appearing for his country.
But it’s about so much more than money. Remember the sheer joy Bale exuded when starring during those Euros out in France. “It’s like being on holiday with your mates,” he said at the time, his off-the-field