Is Gareth Bale worth £ 85 million?

Gareth Bale, the boy wonder from Wales, the country’s prodigal son – one of the very footballers at present to truly claim to have the world at his feet. Every summer, during the transfer window, there comes along a player who grabs the limelight from everyone else and is the centre of attention and this summer has been no different.

And this time, the man in demand the most is the twinkly toed Welsh winger. And why wouldn’t he be? He scored 21 goals in the Premier League, a remarkable feat for a defender converted into a winger. Not only through goals, Bale was the heart of anything and everything that Tottenham Hotspur did last season and the 24 year old almost single handedly fired Spurs to the UEFA Champions League. Without their star player in the side, who knows where the club might have finished at the end of last season.

In retrospect, Bale deserves all the attention that is coming his way. But we all know, in the vast ocean of world football, Tottenham is not the mighty fish and for a player of the caliber of Bale, it was only a matter of time before the bigger fishes in the ocean smelled blood and came swooping for him. Some of the biggest clubs in the world have lined up to get the coveted signature of the Welshman on a contract and no matter how hard a negotiator Spurs chairman Daniel Levy might deem himself to be, it is only a matter of time before Bale struts his stuff for one of the biggest clubs in the world.

UEFA’s much vaunted and documented Financial Fair Play Regulations have tied the hands of many of Europe’s top dogs, no matter how big or rich they might be. And that might just turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the White Hart Lane club who just cannot let their star man leave on a cheap. Levy even went on record saying even an offer upwards of £ 100 million wouldn’t be enough to tempt them to part with Bale and it would require an absolutely astronomical sum to force their hand.

It almost seems surreal that clubs these days can even think of demanding such astronomical sums for a player – no matter how big a player he is. What would have been unimaginable a few years back has become a reality in today’s inflated transfer market where even a certain Andy Carroll can command a fee of £ 35 million. Bale is human after all and clubs simply cannot go about flaunting their money for him. Almost two-thirds of the professional football clubs in the world are valued lesser than Bale and that is a testament to how crazy the transfer market has become.

If he did leave the club for the aforementioned amount, it would only spark a domino effect which could see football clubs demanding higher and higher transfer fees for a moderately talented player. And if that happens, The Beautiful Game will be doomed, to say the least. Here, we take a look at what Bale might be worth and whether he is deserving of the pile of money being thrown at him and if Daniel Levy and the club is doing the right thing by holding on to their star player.

Bale’s standings in terms of previous windows

A close inspection of the previous few transfer windows shows the tendency of the bigger clubs to overspend. There are possibilities that a big money signing might bomb or become a huge success. The world record £ 80 million Real Madrid paid Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo has been recouped completely, through shirt sales and his performances on the pitch. He has reached a level that undeniably puts him on the same pedestal as Lionel Messi as one of the two best players in the world at the moment and although his time in Spain hasn’t yielded many trophies, Ronaldo has reached a height that many can only dream of and still has some of his best years ahead of him.

Looking on the other side, the Madrid giants paid a whopping £ 58 million fee to bring Kaka to the Santiago Bernabeu that same summer, hoping the Brazilian maestro and Portuguese boy wonder would form a formidable partnership that would land the club their much coveted la Decima – the tenth European crown. But that hasn’t been the case and the Brazilian has endured a torrid time in the Spanish capital, plagued by injuries and poor form.

While Ronaldo has flourished after his dream move to los Blancos, Kaka has been reduced to a bit part player. This shows how risky the entire transfer business really is and Real would still be counting their losses if they hadn’t landed the Portugal skipper that summer. The market has become extremely unpredictable and given the transfers of Fernando Torrest and Carroll – the most expensive transfer in British history and the most expensive Englishman in history, it is no wonder that Levy has labeled Gareth Bale as ‘unbuyable’.

The fee Madrid paid to Manchester United for Ronaldo was almost justifiable as he had won everything there was to win at United and was even awarded the Ballon d’Or and was perhaps the best player in the world at that time. Gareth Bale still has a lot to do before the huge price tag can be justified – he has just been a brilliant player in a single season in the Premier League and still has a lot to do. At Spurs, he will never be closer to winning the Ballon d’Or and neither is he any close to winning the trophies Ronaldo won at Old Trafford. The hefty price tag the club has slapped on the player is ridiculous and the only thing that can help him swing the move is his desire to play for Real Madrid. But with Bale not ready to submit the transfer request that Real want him to, things might just rumble on for a few more months.

The negotiability of Daniel Levy

The previous years have showed Spurs are more than capable of holding out for a big sum before letting their prized assets leave the club; case in point the sales of Michael Carrick and Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United. But the club today is different. It is no longer content with finishing behind the big four and getting in Europe. Under Andre Villas Boas, they are targeting the big leagues and if their summer transfer movement goes according to plan, they could become real contenders for silverware. Given the long drawn transfer of Luka Modric to Real Madrid last summer, Spurs will not let go of their prized asset easily. In the past, they have pocketed over £ 50 million from the combined sales of Berbatov to United and Robbie Keane to Liverpool and this shows how difficult they are to negotiate with.

With Spurs trying to rebuild to their glory days of the 1960s under AVB, they are in no rush to sell to balance their books. A financially sound institution with state of the art facilities coming along, Spurs have broken into the upper echelons of English football in recent years and if they manage to hold on to Bale, they might as well shed their tag as a selling club.

Gareth Bale is one of the few players who can raise eyebrows and drive emotions with one swing of his boot, he is one of the global superstars and if he can continue his ascent to the top, he could well become the best player on the planet. Clubs chasing him will be well aware of his bulging price tag and given the aforementioned reasons, won’t be too hard pressed to pull all stops for the mercurial winger. Every player has a price – whether Spurs’ valuation of the player is justified or not is something time will tell.


DISCLAIMER: This article has been written by a member of the FootballWorld fraternity and represents the personal views of the writer and not of footballworld.co.in.
Posted by Subham Mitra on behalf of FootballWorld.