Gareth Bale’s agent has claimed that his client’s world-record move to Real Madrid almost collapsed and the player was under torture as the deal went right to the wire.
The Welsh winger completed his €100m move to the La Liga side, few days before the transfer window slammed shut, but his agent Jonathan Barnett first talked about the move in late May.
“It never broke down, but that was close to happening a few times,” Barnett told Spanish TV station La Sexta. “We had a plan for the move. I hope that I am still friends with Daniel Levy, but I am not sure. He is a hard negotiator, but fair. Tottenham made us a big offer for Bale to stay. The meetings were not always peace and love. We had meetings which were hard.
“Bale needed to have a few days off and Tottenham gave him permission to go to Marbella,” he said. “Gareth is very strong, but it must have been torture for him. Every day we spoke about five times. He wanted to know every day what had happened, and sometimes nothing had happened. So his emotions went up and down, but sometimes I had to tell him just nothing had changed.”
Barnett also re-echoed Blancos president Florentino Perez and manager Carlo Ancelotti, that another club, believed to be Manchester United, offered Spurs more money for Bale.
“The Spanish media did not understand why the transfer was not finalised with so much money, but if Tottenham needed the money it would have been done on the first day,” he said. “There was a club who offered more money than Real Madrid. A lot more.”
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