Gareth Bale
Tottenham Hotspur are in talks to re-sign Wales forward Gareth Bale from Real Madrid, and are closing in on a deal for his team-mate Sergio Reguilon.
Bale, 31, left Spurs to join Real for a then world record £85m in 2013 and has since scored more than 100 goals and won four Champions League titles.
“Gareth still loves Spurs,” his agent Jonathan Barnett told BBC Sport Wales. “It’s where he wants to be.”
Both Bale and left-back Reguilon had been linked with Manchester United.
Spain international Reguilon, 23, came through the youth set-up at Real and made his first-team debut in October 2018.
United spoke to Real about him but were put off by the Spanish giants’ insistence on a buyback clause.
That has allowed Tottenham to step in, and the expectation is he will now join Jose Mourinho’s squad.
Where Bale is concerned, a loan looks likeliest at the moment, although a permanent transfer has not been ruled out with Real keen to recover costs as they look to offload their highest earner.
Bale’s salary is perhaps the biggest hurdle for Spurs to overcome—he still has two years left on a contract which is thought to be worth about £600,000 a week.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is working through the detail of the deal and how to make it work. Indications are Real would be willing to pay a proportion of Bale’s salary but even then he would be getting more than England and Tottenham captain Harry Kane.