The 100 milion euro man

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Gareth Bale set to be first 100m euro player after Spurs-Real Madrid switch

World record transfer likely to be confirmed this week as TV fuels European football's spending spree

At Real Madrid they have already erected a tented scaffold in one of the stands at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, a small stage upon which they hope the football world will focus later this week. Gareth Bale, the Cardiff boy who made good at Tottenham Hotspur, is set to be unveiled as the world's first 100m euro (86m pound) footballer barring an unlikely counter bid from Manchester United. The Spanish economy may be wheezing in recession, but Real are intent upon bucking the trend.

Even by Real's standards the fee is staggering, considering this is a player who was almost sold by Tottenham Hotspur for next-to-nothing just four years ago and who has played only one season in Europe's elite competition, the Champions League. It is made more extraordinary because the Welsh international is likely never to feature in a World Cup: the ultimate marketing vehicle for the stars of the game – and their clubs.

But Real Madrid have been wooed by his recent consistent brilliance at White Hart Lane with the 24-year-old duly named both footballer of the year and young footballer of the year by his fellow professionals in April, having finished last season with 31 goals in all competitions. His move would eclipse the 80m pound paid by Real to take Ronaldo from Manchester United in 2009.

Completion of the transfer would be the high water mark of an unprecedented summer of spending across elite European football, as competing oligarchs buoyed by the soaring value of TV deals have lifted spending power across the continent's biggest clubs.

The Premier League may be about to lose one of its leading lights, but English top flight clubs have still forked out over 460m pound on players in the current transfer window. That figure will expand further ahead of next Monday's 11pm deadline for deals to be done, and should break the previous record of around 500m pound, established in 2008, for a single window's business.

A new 5.5bn pound television deal guarantees the Premier League's bottom club 63m pound – more than the champions, Manchester United, earned from the broadcasting pot last season. There is more money pouring into the top division than ever before and that is reflected in transfer fees that are often an expression of power in the game.

"Football reflects life, albeit with a ball, so the rich just keep getting richer," said Jon Smith, co-founder of the leading First Artist Management agency. "The rich clubs spend because they can."

Manchester City have spent a little under ￡100m almost unnoticed. Tottenham, even with Bale on his way out, have broken their own transfer record twice. Chelsea can sign a 30m pound player, in the Brazilian Willian, almost on a whim. And yet what makes this summer all the more unique is that, where Roman Abramovich's Chelsea, the Glazer family's Manchester United or even City under the Abu Dhabi United group used to splash the cash most extravagantly, alongside Barcelona and Real, now many more clubs across Europe have emerged to join the frenzy.

French champions Paris St Germain are under Qatari ownership and were able to pay 55m pound for Edinson Cavani, a Uruguayan forward previously at Napoli who had been courted by English clubs. AS Monaco, bankrolled by the Russian Dmitry Rybolovlev, only returned to the French first division at the end of last season but have spent over 150m euro in the hope of mustering an immediate title challenge. They beat sides at the top of the Premier League to buy Atlético Madrid's Colombian forward, Radamel Falcao, who cost an eye-catching 53m pound.

Germany's Bundesliga, which provided both finalists in last season's Champions League, has also benefitted from its own new broadcasting deal to emerge as a financial and footballing power. Bayern Munich, the reigning European champions, are now under the stewardship of Pep Guardiola – world football's most coveted coach – and were able to entice Thiago Alcantara from Barcelona earlier this summer just as Manchester United were preparing to announce the signing of the midfielder.

Barcelona took the brilliant Brazil striker Neymar from Santos for 50m euro to refresh their forward line. If suggestions the Catalan club have already recouped a large proportion of that fee in sales of Neymar's number 11 shirt seem far-fetched, they can at least expect to make a large chunk of that money back in global marketing monies alone. Indeed, all these mind-boggling deals were completed in a summer when Uefa's newly imposed Financial Fair Play rules were supposed to be taking effect, with clubs supposedly restricted to living within their means.

"I just hope Uefa make sure it's Financial Fair Play for all, and not just those clubs who have the ability to sell their training ground more than once," said Smith.

That was said with tongue in cheek but reflects the potential loopholes in the Uefa president Michel Platini's plans for regulation. Real's pursuit of Bale has already drawn stinging criticism from the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

"It makes a joke of the FFP regulations," he said. "I find it amazing that in the year the regulations come in, world football has gone completely crazy."

And yet Real consider the 86m pound arrival of a stellar player a means of reimposing their authority. The president, Florentino Perez, has personally driven the club's galactico culture for high-value players and was anxious to start his fourth term with a bang. An egotist and a populist, Perez is a figure who enjoys the summer months far more than the season itself because he can't control everything that happens out on the pitch. Real, who set the benchmark with the arrivals of Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo, are about to establish a new world record fee. Football's spending has never been more lavish.

Gareth Bale set to be first 100m euro player after Spurs-Real Madrid switch

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1893 Willie Groves West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa 100 pound

1905 Alf Common Sunderland to Middlesbrough 1,000 pound

1922 Syd Puddefoot West Ham United to Falkirk 5,000 pound

1928 David Jack Bolton Wanderers to Arsenal 10,890 pound

1952 Hans Jeppson Atalanta to Napoli 52,000 pound

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1961 Luis Suárez Barcelona to Internazionale 152,000 pound

1968 Pietro Anastasi Varese to Juventus 500,000 pound

1975 Giuseppe Savoldi Bologna to Napoli 1.2m pound

1984 Diego Maradona Barcelona to Napoli 5m pound

1992 Jean-Pierre Papin Marseille to Milan 10m pound

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1996 Alan Shearer Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle 15m pound

1998 Denílson São Paulo to Real Betis 21.5m pound

1999 Christian Vieiri Lazio to Internazionale 32m pound

2000 Hernán Crespo Parma to Lazio 35.5m pound

2000 Luis Figo Barcelona to Real Madrid 37m pound

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2001 Zinedine Zidane Juventus to Real Madrid 45.6 pound

2009 Kaká Milan to Real Madrid 56m pound

2009 Cristiano Ronaldo Manchester United to Real Madrid 80m pound

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Can Gareth Bale really be worth 100 million euros?

Gareth Bale’s expected world-record transfer to Real Madrid is proof that football’s super-clubs are playing as much for Asian shirt sales as European trophies, says Oliver Brown

You don’t have to be the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics to work out why Jonathan Barnett, Gareth Bale’s agent, is so desperate to force through his star client’s eye-watering 100-million-euro move to Real Madrid, given that he gets a five per cent cut of the player’s earnings. The better question is whether any footballer – let alone a 24-year-old Tottenham winger yet to win a title in his own league – can possibly be worth such a staggering sum. And if so, how?
At first glance, this level of outlay seems grotesque. Gerardo Martino, the understated new coach of Real’s arch-rivals Barcelona, describes it as “lacking respect for the world we live in”. It certainly sits deeply uncomfortably in the context of Spain’s moribund economy, and the spiralling debts of its leading football clubs, which now stand at almost 3.5 billion pound. And in pure football terms, the team already has one of the best wingers in the world, in Cristiano Ronaldo, and is in rather more urgent need of a world-class striker, such as Liverpool’s Luis Suarez.
And yet Bale’s leap from North London to Madrid is tantalisingly close. The Welshman has already flown by private plane to Málaga, withdrawing to the Marbella villa of David Manasseh, Barnett’s business partner, as the final paperwork is thrashed out. At any hour, the announcement is expected to come that the “boyo wonder” has joined. A special stage has already been erected in Real Madrid’s stadium for the crowds to pay homage.
On one level, the move would be a mercy, for it would bring to an end the most protracted transfer saga of modern times, in which reports of the eventual price tag edged as high as 103 million pound. Yet the central mystery remains – how can one extravagantly gifted footballer be on the cusp of becoming the most expensive player on Earth, let alone a show-pony who might be the Premier League’s player of the season, but was once 90 minutes away from being thrown out of Southampton’s academy?
The answer is that the calculus applied by Real Madrid in the quest for their latest galáctico is predicated upon far more than talent alone. The club’s president, Fiorentino Pérez, has been prepared to stake 56 million pound on Kaká, 80 million pound on Cristiano Ronaldo, and now 86 million pound on Bale in recent seasons as an act not of strategy, but accountancy.

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2013 Gareth Bale Totenham Hotspurs to Real Madrid >86 milion pound ??