Tottenham's Gareth Bale set to attract major summer bid from Barcelona

Tottenham's Gareth Bale has emerged as a summer
target for the European champions Photo: AFP

Barcelona’s sporting board has made Gareth Bale its priority summer transfer target and will urge Pep Guardiola to sanction the Tottenham Hotspur player’s signing.

The club’s technical department, led by sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta, considers the 22-year-old Bale to be the perfect long-term replacement for Eric Abidal, who underwent a liver transplant last week. The club’s chief scout, Albert Valentín, checked out Bale’s performance for Tottenham in the 3-1 win at Fulham last November, when the Welshman set up Aaron Lennon for Spurs’ second goal.
Sandro Rosell, the Barcelona chairman, also wants Neymar on the books but is shrinking from meeting the buy-out clause in his contract, which reportedly rose from £37 million when he renewed his deal last November. Rosell is therefore likely to postpone any move for the Brazilian forward until after the 2014 World Cup.
That puts the accent this summer on defensive reinforcements. This could make Bale the beneficiary: he is the man Barcelona’s board would most like to see in the Blaugrana.
But there remains a number of potential impediments to the transfer becoming a reality. Bale’s prospects of signing for the European champions are tied up with the contract negotiations for Guardiola, and the manager’s relationship with the board has become strained this season.
There is frustration at the delay in Guardiola’s commitment to a contract extension, with his current deal expiring this summer. His apparent readiness to keep his options open has left him isolated from the board.

However, Guardiola will retain the final say over close-season transfer movements in the expectation that he will pledge one more year to the Nou Camp dugout.
So far, the delay over Guardiola’s future has meant he has given no indication as to his transfer-market intentions. Some at Barcelona believe Guardiola might favour a more impactful signing than a move to strengthen the left-back position, and this could be the source of more tension with the board.
Club executives are keen to reduce their expenditure this summer. The available budget was eroded by the £50 million outlay on Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez last year, with a proportion of the 2012 summer funds paid to Arsenal and Udinese for those two signings.
There remain three years on Bale’s contract at Tottenham, making the 2011 Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year a potentially expensive proposition.