During the Bale business I faced a daily, nigh on hourly battle against imbeciles who couldn’t cope with the truth.
Some brain surgeons even decided that we had already been paid for Bale, weeks and weeks ahead of the official announcement of his sale.
I mean, we must have done the deal. How else could we be mounting such a monumental spend up?!
The idea that Joe Lewis had funded our summer spending seemed unbelievable. He did. And know this. The Bale fee hasn’t been spent. There will be more activity in January.
Here’s Jonathan Barnett:
“The signing of Bale came close to falling apart. Tottenham made a bid for Bale to stay. Meetings were not always peace and love, some were harsh with disagreements.
Bale needed a few days off so he asked permission from Tottenham [to go to Marbella]. The player spoke to no-one, he was not with anyone and he saw no-one. He’s strong, but that must have been torture for him.
The Spanish press didn’t understand why Tottenham weren’t agreeing to the money, but if Tottenham needed money the deal would have been done the first day. Moreover, there was a club that offered more money than Real Madrid. A lot more money.”