Whirl of Money on Soccer's Merry-Go-Round

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/sports/soccer/05iht-soccer05.html

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LONDON — His picture looms large above the streets of Manhattan, heralding NBC Sports’ $250 million push into live coverage of English Premier League soccer games.

“Every Match. Every Team. Every Week.” reads the billboard above a Sbarro restaurant on the street corner below.

But unless every news outlet in London and Madrid has it wrong, Gareth Bale, the man on that billboard, will no longer be a player in the Premier League by the time kickoff arrives Aug. 17. Real Madrid is closing in on a transfer that will cost the Spanish giant a world-record fee to buy him from Tottenham Hotspur.

The figures are being crunched as you read this. Joe Lewis, the Spurs’ chief shareholder, is reportedly coming out of his base in the Bahamas to meet Real’s president, Florentino Pérez, to haggle over the final terms.

It will cost no less than $130 million for a swift, straight cash deal, or upwards of $150 million if Madrid wants time to pay or for the deal to include some kind of player exchange, with Real’s Portuguese defender, Fabio Coentrão, or its Argentine winger, Ángel di María, among the names being discussed.

If that sounds alien to American ears, it must be pointed out that this is the way the world moves soccer talents around.

And, in another move that might be a minor blow to the NBC coverage, Clint Dempsey, by far the most effective outfield American player in European soccer these past five years, has just signed up to return to the States.

Last Friday, Dempsey and Bale were teammates at Tottenham. Today Dempsey belongs to the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer, and anytime after tomorrow Bale will be in the Spanish capital.

That’s the soccer merry-go-round, and that’s life for two good, gifted pros.

At 30 years of age, Dempsey slipped quietly out of the Premier League, with Seattle paying a fee in the region of $9 million for the Texan. It also committed to an annual salary of slightly less than that over a four-year contract.

Good for Clint. His mix of energy and guile has been a more than reliable asset, first for Fulham and then Spurs. While there is gas in his tank, do not rule out his making guest returns to an English team — say Everton — in the M.L.S. off-season.

Bale, however, is in another league. He turned 24 in July and is at the top of his game. When Pérez wants a player, history has shown that he will break every record in history to get him.

Cristiano Ronaldo? He cost £80 million, or about $123 million, when Real bought him from Manchester United in 2009. Just 28, Ronaldo still has plenty of goals to add to his extraordinary total of 175 in 167 games in the all-white uniform of Madrid.

Ricardo Kaká? The multitalented creative player cost €66 million (now about $87 million) in the summer of 2009. Kaká is a little older than Ronaldo at 31, but now that his previous boss, Carlo Ancelotti, has become the coach at Madrid, he is likely to figure in this coming campaign — if his body can just hold together for a season.

These two sums are just for the registration of the player. Wages come on top of that and are negotiated as more tens of millions of dollars (or euros or pounds).

It is being written that Real Madrid will put together a starter’s contract worth about $250,000 a week for Bale, which is comfortably double the wage limit that Spurs prudently sets for its star players.

Where do we get all these figures, which, after all, are negotiated in private and usually stay private between the buyer, the seller and the athlete? Well, where Madrid is concerned they often leak out through Marca, the sports daily that is said to be Real’s Madrid’s first point of negotiation when it desires a player.

Openly touting for another club’s player isn’t in the fair play guide, and Pérez usually goes by the book. He has, though, plenty of mouthpieces out there.

One by one, Real Madrid’s established players, led by captain Iker Casillas and deputy captain Sergio Ramos, have spoken out on how good it would be to have Bale on their side.

Then Ancelotti came out and said, in answer to media questions, that of course Bale would be a great addition to the team. The coach then added that he cannot speak about this, but that negotiations were under way.

We have known that throughout the European summer. Another of the great Galácticos signed by Pérez is Zinédine Zidane, and he, now very much a spokesman and adviser to the president, has been vocal for months in saying that Real and Bale are a perfect fit.

Are they? Gareth Bale is outstanding by British standards, and has looked that way since he was spotted playing as a kid in his native Cardiff in Wales. His speed and touch, especially with the left foot, marked him as a budding talent who at the age of 9 was courted by the English club Southampton.

At 14, he clocked 11.4 seconds in running 100 meters. At 16, he made his debut for Southampton’s senior side, making an instant impact with his greyhound speed and (something we have tended to see less of recently) an ability to bend free kicks like Beckham.

Temperament was his only drawback. He still to an extent broods for Wales. Though Spurs took him to London in 2006 for a fee that by increments totaled £7 million, the real Bale, with confidence to match his physical attacking power, became consistent only after he turned 21.

His skills are not greater than those of Cristiano Ronaldo, but imagine the pair alternating wings at the Bernabéu in Madrid. Bale must adapt to a new style, a new language and living in the Spanish capital with his longtime girlfriend, Emma Rhys-Jones, and their baby daughter, Alba.

There will be no ego problem from him, but there might be some from Ronaldo if he has to share top billing. Speaking of billing, who next will be NBC’s poster boy for Premier League soccer, post-Bale?