Welsh sensation Gareth Bale’s move to the Galacticos of Real Madrid has made him the world’s most expensive footballer. Courier football writer Ian Roache asks if any player is worth £256,000 a week.
He danced up the wing just a few yards in front of the press box, tormenting Scotland with his fabulous pace and artistry. The football lover in me watched Gareth Bale’s virtuoso performance for Wales against Scotland at the Cardiff City Stadium last October with genuine admiration.
It further confirmed my opinion that the man should be at one of the world’s greatest clubs, like Real Madrid, rather than just a good one like Tottenham Hotspur.
The disappointment felt at yet another World Cup qualifying defeat for the Scots was tempered by having seen the Spurs flying machine in the flesh.
He dominated the match, scored Wales’ equaliser from the penalty spot then curled home a brilliant winner with just seconds to spare to make the shoogly peg that was holding up Scotland manager Craig Levein’s jacket just a little bit looser.
He is a special player and has promise aplenty to fulfil, although you suspect he will struggle to reach the status of elite talents like Diego Maradona, Pele, Lionel Messi, Johan Cruyff or even Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane.
Bale is certainly the best Britain can offer just now but the £85.3 million world record transfer fee that has just taken him to Real is as ugly as some of his play is beautiful.
Of course, transfer time has become something akin to a soap opera, particularly in the English market, where TV presenters jazz up even the most modest of moves. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if, just once, the breaking news strapline read: “Man goes from one job to another.”
I jest a wee bit but there is a serious issue here. Just as the majority of clubs in Scotland are now attempting to cut their financial cloth accordingly to reflect these more straitened times, so should the wider game. We are meant to be living in an era of financial fair play, according to European governing body UEFA, but the breakdown of Bale’s salary makes a mockery of that.
The Welshman has more than trebled his Spurs wage with the six-year Madrid deal and it works out as: £13.312 million a year; £256,000 a week; £36,471 a day; £1,520 an hour; £25.33 a minute; and 42 pence every second. The finger of blame for such an obscene bit of business should not be pointed at Bale, of course, but at the sport in which he excels.
Also, does not the fact that it is a club from Spain, of all countries, handing out the wads of cash make it even worse? A recent assessment of the Spanish economy by the International Monetary Fund condemned the unemployment rate of 26.3% as “too high.”
It added: “The outlook is difficult and risks are high” referring to the general economy.
Football in that nation is obviously immune to such gloom if Madrid can spend 100 million Euros on one player.
It is, indeed, a Bale-out of a different kind.
Real fans won’t bother about the fee or salary if he is a success, I hear some say.
Maybe they are right but does that mean Madrid should be throwing their money about to such an extent when a large number of those who align themselves to the club will have no job or had to suffer austerity measures?
Football is a business and, yes, Real fans love their galacticos but is even the brightest of stars worth £83.5 million? The answer has to be “no” which, as Bale will find out, means the same in Spanish as in English.