‘Real Madrid should be kissing the floor he walks on’: Gareth Bale’s agent slams Zinedine Zidane’s ‘incorrect’ treatment of Tottenham’s new signing and calls their fans ‘disgraceful’ in a parting jibe at the Spanish champions
- Gareth Bale left Real Madrid to join Tottenham on a season-long loan last week
- His agent says Real Madrid should be ‘kissing the floor he walks on’ after his exit
- Bale helped the club win 13 major trophies but has received plenty of criticism
- He was frozen out by Zinedine Zidane and was told he didn’t have a future at club
Gareth Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett has hit out at Real Madrid and insists the club should be ‘kissing the floor’ that the Welshman walks on, given his impact in Spain.
Bale left Real Madrid on a season-long loan to Tottenham at the back end of last week, with his time at the Bernabeu all but finished.
Bale won 13 major trophies with the club and was a vital part of the team that ended a 12-year barren spell in the Champions League, but he has been on the end of plenty of criticism from figures inside and outside the Bernabeu.
Gareth Bale was delighted to secure a season-long loan move back to his old club Tottenham
His agent Jonathan Barnett claims that Real Madrid should be ‘kissing the floor Bale walks on’
‘We had other clubs, maybe bigger clubs than Tottenham, interested, but he had to be happy with where he went and I think he is now,’ Barnett said, as reported by The Telegraph.
‘It was all agreed his career at Real Madrid was over so it was quite easy once we realised it was serious. It was a build-up of a clash of personalities, a build-up of not being supported, it was many different things.
‘For somebody who has done as well as he has for Real Madrid, he didn’t get the respect he deserved and that was a big problem. What he’s achieved for Real Madrid, they should be kissing the floor that he walks on.’
Come the end of the season Bale will still have a further year left on his Real Madrid contract, but he is not expected to return to the Bernabeu to play again.
Bale was hugely successful at Real Madrid, winning 13 major trophies in his time at the club
Instead, Barnett admitted on talkSPORT that Bale could yet agree a deal to stay at Spurs beyond the initial season-long loan.
‘Yeah, there are lots of opportunities; it’s up to him,’ Barnett said of the 31-year-old. ‘The most important thing is for him to enjoy his football and that he’s playing well.
‘As long as that’s happening, it’ll all be fine. He’s a mature man now and he knows what he wants out of life. He’s probably the most successful footballer Britain has ever produced, and there’s lots of things he still wants to do with his life, so we’ll have to wait and see.’
Bale struggled to see eye-to-eye with Zinedine Zidane during his final years at the Bernabeu, and Barnett was very honest in his scathing criticism of the hierarchy, manager and fans at Real.
Bale arrived at Tottenham on the same day as another Real Madrid player in Sergio Reguilon
‘In my opinion, he wasn’t treated correctly for somebody who’s done so much for a great club,’ he said. ‘I think that things were wrong.
‘It’s hard to put one finger on it but I think somebody who has achieved what he has achieved for a club, in seven years, should have been treated better.
‘I don’t want to blame anybody or go into it. I think what the fans did was disgraceful and the club didn’t help. That’s all I really want to get into.’
Bale’s agent says he ‘wasn’t treated correctly’ by the likes of Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid
Bale endured a difficult last couple of seasons at the Bernabeu, trying but failing to move on to the Chinese Super League last summer, with Real pulling the plug on the deal at the last minute.
In an honest interview during the most recent international break, Bale put the ball firmly in the club’s court and insisted that he was ready to leave whenever the club allowed it.
Finally a move has now come to fruition and Bale has already hailed the ‘warm welcome in an environment where I am loved’ at Spurs.
