Spurs have no option to re-sign Gareth Bale for another season

While Tottenham Hotspur’s seemingly endless search for a manager continues, one of the players from last season’s roller coaster has confirmed he does not have the option to return.

Attacker Gareth Bale, who played on loan at Spurs last season, has broken the silence through his agent Jonathan Barnett and confirmed that he is under contract at Real Madrid and that’s about it. Spurs do not have an option to extend his loan in North London. Dan Kilpatrick has the story in full and confirmed on Twitter as such.

After the season ended, Bale was somewhat cryptic about his future, saying that he was going to hold off announcing his future once the Euros were done. With Wale’s 4-0 defeat at the hands of Denmark last weekend, Bale has ended the mystery and says he wants to keep playing football:

“I want to continue to play. People ask stupid questions all the time, but obviously I love playing for Wales,” he said. “I’ll play for Wales until the day that I stop playing football. We’ve just started the World Cup campaign, and we need to take this [Euros] experience into that.

Bale is 31 years old and found playing time difficult to get under José Mourinho, but the final two months of the season were almost carried by the Welshman as he found success playing under interim manager Ryan Mason. The Welsh International bagged 16 goals and three assists in just over 1600 minutes of play, including two crucial goals against Leicester City on the final match day to secure European football for Spurs.

Barnett was asked about Bale’s future, specifically returning to Tottenham, and he made it clear where Bale is at:

“As I have said from the beginning, there is no option. Gareth has no agreements whatsoever. He is under contract to Real.”

With Zinedine Zidane no longer in charge and Carlo Ancelotti returning to the manager’s box in Madrid, there was some talk about that final year of his contract being played out in Spain. However, reports are that MLS side LA Galaxy are more than interested in his services.

I’m skeptical that MLS is going to be willing to pony up a transfer fee and hefty wages for Bale. He’s on £500k/week, never mind that LA already have their maximum number of designated players in Jonathan dos Santos, Chicharito and Kevin Cabral. Sure, the Galaxy could pay one of them down to open up the slot or Don Garber could create a new rule on the fly to open up that option, but Bale going to MLS does not look to be in the cards.

More than likely, Bale is going to find himself in Madrid with little playing time as Ancelotti has his own plans for the squad. He could push for another loan, but Spurs are probably not going to do another year as they are long overdue for an overhaul to the squad. Bale will be 32 next month and while the fans never truly got a chance to see him in person, it’s difficult to see a scenario where he returns.