CELEBRITY
LIKE MESSI; LIKE BALE! MADRID WILL NOT LET BALE GO
Real Madrid have decided they are not prepared to let Welsh winger Gareth Bale leave the club for free this summer, 12 months after they were made to regret making the same choice.
According to 90mins, Los Blancos were minutes away from offloading Bale and his reported £600,000-a-week wages to Chinese side Jiangsu Suning, only for president Florentino Pérez to block the move at the last minute as he felt Bale should command a transfer fee.
His reward for that was to pay Bale another year’s salary and watch on as he bagged more media scandals than goals.
Now, with the coronavirus pandemic crippling Real’s finances, most assumed the club would do whatever it takes just to say goodbye to Bale.
Well, it turns out that’s not the case. According to Marca, Real will demand some form of fee to get rid of Bale’s high wages as they are adamant he is still a valuable player. How’d that decision work out for you last time?
Bizarrely, it’s said that Real are ‘optimistic’ of finding a buyer for Bale as they believe the Welshman will push for an exit, despite him never doing that before and his agent repeatedly insisting that they have no plans to leave Madrid.
Mundo Deportivo go one step further and put a price tag on Bale: a whopping £22m.
Real believe Bale should command the same fee as James Rodriguez, who is closing in on his own escape from the Santiago Bernabéu. Everton are close to landing the Colombian, and Real hope Bale will be next in ‘Operation Exit’.
The difference with Bale is that his enormous wages make it almost impossible for any side to afford that £22m. Tottenham know they couldn’t, which has prompted the same speculative links to Manchester United that we get every year.
David Beckham’s Inter Miami have also been linked with the Welshman, but affording such a deal would be even harder for a Major League Soccer side.
Bale still has two years remaining on his contract, meaning Real are facing the prospect of paying him another £26m in wages before his deal eventually expires. You’d think Real would just be happy to avoid that, but that’s seemingly not the case.
Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first footballer to reach billionaire status, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which has valued the Portugal great’s net worth at an estimated $1.4 billion.
The 40-year-old striker’s financial ascent comes after he signed a new contract with Saudi side Al-Nassr in June reportedly worth more than $400 million.
Bloomberg said that Ronaldo earned more than $550 million in salary between 2002 and 2023, supplemented by a decade-long Nike deal worth nearly $18 million annually, and lucrative endorsements with Armani, Castrol and others that added more than $175 million to his fortune.
Ronaldo’s move to Al-Nassr from Manchester United in 2023 had already made him the highest-paid player in football history, with an annual salary of 177 million pounds ($237.52 million), plus bonuses and a reported 15% share in his Saudi Arabia club.
Argentina and Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has earned more than $600 million in pre-tax salary during his career.
Ronaldo’s billionaire status places him among a rare group of athletes that includes basketball greats Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Roger Federer.
Ronaldo suggested he is not considering retirement any time soon.
“I still have a passion for this,” he said at the Portugal Football Globes gala on Tuesday. “My family says it’s time to quit and they ask me why I want to score 1000 goals if I’ve already scored 900-something. But I don’t think that way inside.
“I’m still producing good things, I’m helping my club and the national team. Why not continue? I am sure that when I finish I will leave full because I gave everything of myself. I know I don’t have many years left to play, but the few I have left, I have to enjoy them to the fullest.”
-Reuters
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Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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