5 Other Ways Real Madrid Could Spend Their Gareth Bale Money
Gareth Bale became the world's most expensive footballer when Real Madrid signed him for €100 million in 2013. Whenever a club spends that much money on a single player, there are always going to be haters.
Case in point: This week, Marco Ruiz at Diario AS ran the numbers and found that Bale is costing Real €750,000 per game. To reach that figure, Ruiz used the €100.7 million transfer fee recently released by Football Leaks, then added on Bale's annual salary and divided it by the number of games the Welshman has played during his injury-riddled time with the club.
Any way you slice it, that's a steep charge for a footballer, no matter how good he is. That number also got us to thinking: What could Real Madrid buy with €750,000?
Keep reading to find out—and remember, this is all in good fun.
5,769 Match Balls
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The official match ball of La Liga this season is Nike's Ordem 3. It's a snazzy-looking orb with black-and-white contrast and yellow highlights, just the sort of thing you'd expect from one of Europe's top leagues.
On Nike's website, the ball retails for €130. That's a steep figure for most fans, but not for a club paying €750,000 per game for Gareth Bale's services. At that rate, Real could afford 5,769 of those balls for each match.
To us, that sounds like a solid idea for a fan giveaway at the next home game.
An Installment on Rafa's Payout
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Real Madrid sacked manager Rafa Benitez earlier this season after a string of disappointing results. Don't feel too bad for Rafa, however: According to the Daily Mail, the Spaniard received a £7 million payout.
At current conversion rates, that works out to about €8.94 million, and at Bale's €750,000-per-game rate, Real could cover about 8 percent of that payout.
Champions League Prize Money
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As the saying goes, winning is contagious. But it's also lucrative.
According to UEFA.com, each group-stage win in the Champions League during the 2015-16 season earns a club €1.5 million. Each draw brings €500,000 into the coffers.
So for each match Bale plays, Real could afford to pay for 1.5 draws and 0.5 wins in the Champions League. Fair return?
Fast Cars
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Footballers like fast cars. It's just part of their DNA. Gareth Bale is no exception.
In November 2014, The Sun's Stephen Moyes reported that Bale had been counseled to end his sports-car obsession for the sake of his hamstrings. That might or might not be good advice, but for our purposes, we're only concerned with how much his cars are setting him back financially.
According to Moyes' article, one of Bale's cars is a Lamborghini Aventador Roadster valued at £325,000. Another is a Ferrari worth £280,000. After doing the conversions (€415,000 for the Lamborghini, €357,000 for the Ferrari), we found that Real could buy him one of each for €772,000.
Maybe this is where the club could show its famed negotiating power and get that price tag down to €750,000 for the pair.
Loads and Loads of Tickets
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Fans of Borussia Dortmund made headlines by throwing tennis balls onto the pitch during their team's German Cup match against Stuttgart on Tuesday. Those supporters were irate about the cost of attending Bundesliga matches, with about a quarter of away tickets costing €70, according to BBC Sport.
With €750,000 to spend for each game, that would be no sweat for Real Madrid. Even if all the away tickets cost €70, Los Blancos could afford 10,714 tickets to the game, surely more than enough to fill the away end.
Just imagine the response from supporters if a club ever did anything of the sort.
