Tottenham Hotspur slap £50m price tag on Gareth Bale
Tottenham Hotspur have reacted to increased interest in their star winger Gareth Bale by putting a £50m price tag on his head.
The 21-year-old has come to prominence over the last few months, with a string of impressive displays capped off by a pair of outstanding showings against European champions Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League group stage.
When Spurs visited the San Siro, they lost 4-3, but almost grabbed a point after Bale scored a hat-trick and encouraged his team-mates to fight on until the final whistle.
The return game at White Hart Lane two weeks later saw Bale put in an equally impressive shift. His work on the left of the pitch saw him continuously beat Maicon Douglas Sisenando — widely hailed as one of the best right-backs in the world — to deliver
several crosses into the box. Two of them led to assists as Spurs beat Inter 3-1.
As a result, it has been reported that the English Premier League club would not entertain offers of anything less than £50m for the player, who has only held a regular first-team place since the start of the year.
The London-based outfit also want to extend Bale’s contract. He signed a new deal in May that ties him to Spurs until 2014, but the club are hoping to hang on to the starlet for even longer.
Southampton will no longer receive sell-on fee
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Bale’s former club, Southampton, will no longer receive 25 per cent of any transfer fee that Spurs receive for the player.
The clause was included in the deal which took the attacker to Spurs in 2007. He made the switch to the EPL side for an initial fee of £5m, potentially rising to double that fee.
However, the deal was changed the following year when Southampton went into financial difficulty.
Spurs then paid the Saints a fee of £3m to reduce the total fee from £10m to £8m. It was also reported that Southampton agreed to waive the sell-on clause in order to get hold of the cash they desperately needed at that moment in time.
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