The tragic cost of Gareth Bale's final year at Real Madrid
FT Desk
- 25 Jun 2022 18:00 BST
- 3 min read
It'll come as no surprise to any football fan that Gareth Bale will leave Real Madrid this summer, as his contract with the Spanish giants has ended. The Welshman will join LAFC after choosing the MLS side over a move to hometown club Cardiff City.
It marks the end of a nine year spell in Madrid, and few players in the modern era have had as horrid an end to a spell as Bale and his time at Real Madrid.
Signed by the club in 2013 for no less than €100 million, the Welsh winger became a global star in the Spanish capital and, unlike so many before him, certainly lived up to the hype.
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However, despite bagging Champions League winning goals and breaking all sorts of goal scoring and assist records, Bale’s stock at the club hit rock bottom under the previous manager Zinedine Zidane and eventually left on loan during the 2020/21 season to pick up game time at his old club, Tottenham Hotspur.
Despite doing well in the Premier League, Bale returned to Spain last season and saw no change in his circumstances under Carlo Ancelotti.
Unused but remarkably well paid, Bale was stuck in limbo in one of the most bizarre circumstances in football today, as he patiently awaited his contract in Madrid to come to an end.
So how much money did Madrid spent and undoubtedly waste on Bale last season?
The cost of Bale’s final season at Madrid
While Madrid have long since forgotten all about the fee they paid for Bale back in 2013, the club are undoubtedly still reeling from a contract extension he signed back in 2016 which significantly increased his earnings per year.
Prior to the new deal, Bale was making around €20 million per year from his basic salary at the club. After his new deal was signed, that shot right up to just under €29 million. And worst of all, it had a clause in it which saw it increase each and every season.
Indeed, it meant that Bale earned a salary of €32,797,277 in his final season at Madrid. Despite hardly playing at all.
In fact, the player managed to muster a grand total of seven appearances in all competitions and just 290 minutes of football for Ancelotti’s side last campaign.
That worked out at €113,094 per minute of football and a staggering €4.7 million per appearance. Bale scored just one goal and failed to register an assist in his final year at the Santiago Bernabeu.
