Gareth Bale to join LAFC in MLS on one year contract

This isn’t really a Tottenham Hotspur transfer rumor, but hey — it’s a slow Saturday and it’s KINDA close to a Spurs rumor, so Imma write on it anyway. According to multiple outlets including The Athletic (£), former Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale has decided on his short term future — he’s heading to America! Bale has reportedly agreed to join MLS side Los Angeles FC (LAFC) on what is initially a one year contract.

Bale recently (and extremely mutually) left Real Madrid as a free agent, and there’s been a lot of chatter about what he’d do next. It was strongly implied that if Wales didn’t qualify for this winter’s World Cup that he might just retire to a life of leisure and constant golf, but Wales beat Ukraine in a qualifying playoff, and Bale publicly stated that he’d be extending his career in order to stay match fit for Qatar.

Gareth, as we know, made a one year loan return to Tottenham two seasons ago under Jose Mourinho, but the excitement of his return to Spurs was tempered as he played the entire season with no fans in attendance due to COVID. There was some initial chatter about coming back to Spurs under Antonio Conte, but that pretty swiftly fell by the wayside. The strongest link between Bale and another club was with Swansea City, Gareth’s “local” club, until today’s news.

I’m actually kind of interested to see just how dominant Bale will be in MLS. The level of football has increased significantly over the past number of years, but MLS is still roughly equivalent to, say, Championship-level. My guess is that Bale will run pretty rampant, once he gets up to speed and if he’s able to stay healthy. There’s also, reportedly, a whole lot of really good golf courses in the LA area, which should keep Gareth pretty happy when he’s not playing football.

It would’ve been nice to see Bale back at Tottenham so the fans could give him a proper welcome/farewell, but this is a pretty interesting way for Bale to ride off into the sunset on the back of his first and only World Cup. And it gives any west coast American Spurs fans a chance to potentially see him live one last time before he retires.