As the narrative of Gareth
Bale’s transfer to Real Madrid careens towards its end pages, we look back
on its lifespan with the typical, ho-hum shrug of fulfilled prediction that
accompanies such uncomplicated, Cartlandian prose.
This tricky situation evolved in
exactly the same manner as every other protracted move: larger club unsettles
smaller club’s player, player decides he likes the money lifestyle at larger
club, player agitates for transfer without asking for it directly, smaller club
holds out for larger fee, deal is eventually done.
Most “poaching” goes down this
way, unless the smaller club is either a) really
small, where incoming funds are gratefully and quickly redistributed or b) in
the habit of iron-cladding it’s player contracts for many future years. In this case, Spurs are neither.
The key step in the above
sequence involves the player deliberately acting unprofessionally in order to
orchestrate the move. Last week, footballer-turned-pundit
Robbie Savage wrote an article on the BBC website about the techniques
footballers use to engineer a move away from their current club. Wandering eyes have surveyed the landscape and
decided that other pastures are a more pleasant shade of green, for reasons of money,
money opportunity or money boredom.
The tactics are true and
time-honoured because they’re effective.
Savage knows, because as he writes, he used some of them himself. First internal and then external opinions
tootle about “needing a change of scenery” or wanting “a different paycheque
challenge”. Eventually, the player
generally gets their way, simply by becoming a distraction.
The biggest surprise of this
story hasn’t been that Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy is holding out until deadline
day seeking the best deal, nor that Real Madrid are seeking the Premiership’s
best player, nor even the frankly diabolical fee mooted. It’s that the player acting
so unprofessionally is Gareth Bale.
Bale is by all accounts a simple
and peaceful man; someone Harry Redknapp gleefully described as thinking
of “a trip abroad” as visiting home in Cardiff. Since arriving on the scene as a big-money
youngster from the vaunted Southampton youth academy, his personal journey has
been littered with troughs and peaks public enough to justify his position as
one of the most marketable respected and relatable footballers in the
British Isles.
Personal reports lend credence to
the idea of a professional and soft-spoken family man with a Rolls-Royce engine
and a piledriver where his left foot should be.
So why, suddenly, would this man begin
to exaggerate injury reports and not arrive for training? The answer is simple: the lure of Real Madrid
– and all that accompanies – is enough to compromise a man’s principles. Which, when the player is by all accounts so …
nice, is such a shame. Gareth Bale really wants this move and obviously
feels he deserves it – either because of what he’s given to Spurs in the past
or because of what he can achieve in La Liga’s future. But should this desire mean he leaves part of
the attitude that earned him such success behind, even temporarily?
A
Catch-22 is inherent when signing long term contracts: the lifespan of
professional athletes is short enough even without the risk of serious injury
so long-term financial security is understandably desirable. What other leverage did Bale have? He played the only card available to him, that
of the disaffected star. With Levy characteristically
content to let the transaction drag in order to leverage best price, and
Real Madrid able to move on to players anew, the player is patently the party
with the most to lose.
It’s not too long a bow to draw
to suggest that Bale is desperate for the move simply because the hand he
played is so antithetical to his supposed character.
If nothing else, the episode rams
home the concrete nature of media politics in the game of transfers; it is
cynical, media-driven and the entity with the most at risk throughout the
situation is also the party with the least control. The result? Gareth Bale acting jarringly out of type.
