Player Watch: Gareth Bale - Retires

deanostheyido said:

You say that...they've already claimed responsibility for this signing...

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bigpalacios said:

Son Kane Bale

Name a better front three?

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parj said:

Don't forget, we got William so close that we paid for his flight in to London and and a taxi to Stanford bridge so that he can sign for Chelsea.

Not done until it's done. A reminder from my son ?

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Archibald&Crooks said:

We also had Cessna in flight "ITK" yesterday.

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N-T-G said:

He will be fit and extremely motivated to stick two
fingers up to Madrid.

This is about pride. This is about being in the best form of his life for this season to take that to the Euros.

I honestly believe we will see a better Bale than the one that left us.

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Archibald&Crooks said:

We also had Cessna in flight "ITK" yesterday.

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George94 said:

Wasn't that for Reguilon?

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guernman said:

Bale isn't going to be the same player who left, because as his agent said his body has gone through a lot and he cannot even train five days a week. But this is still an epic statement from the club and will provide a huge lift for the squad and great exposure following the Amazon doc and Alex Morgan coup.

Hopefully this will now also help close deals with our other primary targets and get players like Ndombele really incentivised to deliver.

If it is just a one year deal though, how absolutely sickening that this should be the year we fall out of the Champions League.

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THFC_is_my_life said:

Poetry in motion

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offside_ruel_fox said:

With the game this evening I reckon the announcement on both players will be done tomorrow. Gives the whole day just to focus on this.

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teenageYIDDO said:

this is the most unlevy like signing ever. I am so shocked he has got it done!

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Marty said:

How can Daniel Levy and Tottenham afford to bring back Gareth Bale?

Spurs are close to signing a man who was once the most expensive footballer in history - but it may not be as expensive as you'd think

theathletic.com

Spoiler: Article

Less than eight weeks ago, Jose Mourinho was downplaying the possibility of Tottenham doing anything too spectacular in this transfer window, promising only “small changes” and no “players for £100 million”. It made perfect sense for a club who expected to lose £200 million because of coronavirus, having been left unable to fill their new stadium.

But now, one game into the 2020-21 season, Spurs are on the brink of signing a man who for three years was the most expensive footballer in history. The man who Daniel Levy himself sold to Real Madrid seven years ago for €100 million (£85.2 million), and whose Real Madrid contract for the last four years has been worth the equivalent of £600,000 per week before tax.

So how are Spurs going to afford to re-sign Gareth Bale…?

The first thing to point out is that while Bale is a huge name, signing him may not be as expensive as you might think. It is nothing compared to the world-record deal that took him in the opposite direction. There are still details to be ironed out, but The Athletic understands that Tottenham are not committed to covering the full cost of his salary.

Although the possibility of a permanent deal has been discussed, it is expected Bale will return to Spurs on a one-year loan. And unlike most loans for high-profile players, Tottenham are not expected to have to pay a loan fee to get him. All they would be required to cover is up to half of his wages. While £300,000 per week would be a big commitment — £100,000 a week more than they pay their current top earners, Tanguy Ndombele and Harry Kane — it is still only salary. If Tottenham pay that every week until the end of the season that would cost them just over £12 million. The total cost of the Bale deal, according to sources, is expected to be roughly £15 million for one season of football.

Compare the signing of Ndombele last summer. The initial fee paid to Lyon was £55.5 million, with another potential €10 million (£9.2 million) in add-ons. On top of that, Spurs gave the midfielder a six-year contract at £200,000 per week (an annual salary of over £10 million), which over those six years could cost them a further £60 million. Of course, that £55 million fee would be amortised over the length of Ndombele’s contract. And the potential upside in signing a talented 22-year-old in a permanent deal is much higher than taking a 31-year-old on loan. Ndombele, at least in theory, could be sold on for a profit after a few good years at the club, although his time at Tottenham so far does not suggest that will happen. But in terms of outlay, in committing no more than £15 million to one season of Bale, there is effectively far less to lose.

That is why the Bale move does not necessarily run counter to the new financial reality Spurs find themselves in.

Tottenham are not over-extending themselves on this deal. Especially given that, in 2018-19, their wage to turnover ratio was the lowest in the league (39 per cent), as was their ratio of wages and transfer amortization to revenue. The club have had some room for manoeuvre to spend more on salaries if they wanted.

While the Bale deal has been applauded, there have been more eyebrows raised in the football industry this week that Spurs have found the money to buy Spain international left-back Sergio Reguilon than to borrow the Welshman. They are paying Real Madrid €30 million (£27 million) for Reguilon — more money than they have spent on any player this summer.

Because, while Tottenham have been active in the transfer market so far this window, already adding two ready-made first-team players in Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg from Southampton and Matt Doherty from Wolves, they have not exactly broken the bank. Midfielder Hojbjerg was part of a deal that saw Kyle Walker-Peters going in the opposite direction, and the difference between the two fees was only estimated at £5 million. Tottenham also got right-back Doherty on the cheap, paying just £15 million before add-ons for a player who still had three years left on his contract at Wolves. Former England goalkeeper Joe Hart also arrived as a free agent after leaving Burnley when his contract expired.

Tottenham still want to be active in the market, even after the signings of Bale and Reguillon, with Mourinho keen to also bring in a back-up centre-forward who can share some of the burden with Kane. But they are looking at an experienced No 9 from overseas for that role — having seen how much money Aston Villa had to spend (£28 million) on Brentford’s Ollie Watkins, who has never played at Premier League level — and the targets who have been looked at so far all reflect that. Alexander Sorloth on loan at Trabzonspor from Crystal Palace (and now set to be sold to RB Leipzig), Habib Diallo from Metz, Eintracht Frankfurt’s Bas Dost, Wout Weghorst of Wolfsburg and M’Baye Niang from Rennes have all been considered, but none of them are exactly potential rivals to Kane.

But between Hojbjerg (minus Walker-Peters), Hart, Doherty, Bale and Reguilon, Spurs’ summer spending on transfer fees still nets out at less than £50 million. Not peanuts, but not much given the improvement Mourinho will theoretically have made to his squad. Aside from Walker-Peters, Spurs have not been able to sell any first-teamers to fund this. Serge Aurier was linked with AC Milan, but they decided against signing him. Spartak Moscow are now an option for the full-back, but a deal is thought to be unlikely, and he does not have many other offers. Ndombele, in theory, could command a big fee but negotiations to sell him never got anywhere.

So, ultimately, Tottenham have had to fund this summer of spending themselves. But they have been able to, and they have not used any of their £175 million Bank of England ‘COVID Corporate Finance Facility’ loan to fund these transfers either. When Spurs took that low-interest loan, they said that money would not be spent on transfers (it was a condition of the agreement) and they have been true to that.

The successful completion of the virus-interrupted 2019-20 Premier League season was hugely important to this, meaning that the league’s rebate to its broadcasters was far less than it was feared back when Spurs took on that loan. In May, before the season resumed the following month, the Premier League estimated that in the event of successful completion, the league would only have to pay back £330 million, compared to £762 million if the season was fully curtailed. And, crucially, that smaller rebate will now be deferred until the 2021-22 season, to help protect clubs’ cashflow. As the league was fully completed, and they climbed up to finish sixth thanks to three wins in the last four games, Spurs would still have received close to £150 million from the league for the season.

That money helped ease the pressure on their finances, although of course the club are still keen to get fans back in as soon as possible. The last six months have obviously cost them a huge amount in stadium revenue, as they have had to play Premier League games behind closed doors as well as cancelling a whole array of concerts and other sporting events. Levy has been exploring the possibility of bringing back thousands of fans into the stadium — in both premium and general admission areas — with special measures to help them get in and out of the ground safely. But until government policy changes on fans, that will not be possible.

While Spurs still need to get fans back into their stadium, they also have the wiggle-room to add a few carefully-selected first-team players to the squad this summer.

The interesting question is why, after years of careful wage restraint and focusing on young players, Levy has pivoted to signing a 31-year-old who will cost Spurs more every week than any other player, even with Real Madrid paying half his wages. Of course, there is an emotional connection there with Bale, a boost for a fanbase who might well feel like they need one. But Bale is also one of the most marketable footballers of his generation, a man who has won the Champions League four times, with a header in the 2014 final and an overhead kick in 2018’s showpiece that will go down in history. He is a galactico, in the truest sense of the word.

Tottenham never used to sign players like this, although Levy did make moves for Rivaldo and Andriy Shevchenko. Having tried and failed several times to sign a massive name somewhere near the peak of his powers, Levy and Spurs adopted a policy of targeting the best up-and-coming talents in English football and beyond in the hope of developing superstars of their own. It was that model that brought a 17-year-old Bale in from Southampton in the first place in 2007.

But this feels like a new era of the Levy project at Spurs. This is the Levy who replaced Mauricio Pochettino last November with Mourinho, one of the most successful managers of all time but also one whose reputation has been on the wane for half a decade. This is also the Levy who welcomed Amazon’s cameras into his club, and was willing to have so many private conversations recorded and broadcast to Amazon Prime subscribers in a documentary series. Just last weekend, Tottenham signed Alex Morgan, one of the most famous and decorated players in the women’s game, to play for them this season.

All of a sudden, Spurs feels like a different place. The club are now trying to compete for the eyeballs of the world.

Their Premier League rivals have built their own brands up around the world, and Levy wants Tottenham to do the same.

And who better than a man who has already played six seasons for the club to help him do it?

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olliec said:

Why’s everyone against the signing of Troy? Could be a great backup for Kane.

knows the league
Hard working
Scored a shit load for a bad Watford team
Hates them tossers down the road, so would be good for derbies.
What am I missing?

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