Gareth Bale claims totally false: Perez

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Gareth Bale

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez feels that the claims made by Marca about Gareth Bale being signed injured and will need an operation to fix a slipped disk in his back are “totally false” and are personally targeted towards him.

The Spanish daily Marca had reported last weekend that the former Tottenham player has a slipped disk in his back — which they accused that the club president Perez knew about before the summer’s 100 million euro world-record transfer went through. The Bernabeu club had strongly denied the claims despite the club’s chief of medical services admitting Bale had a slight back problem, not serious ones though.

Bale continued his ‘mini preseason’ programme, which includes double daily sessions and the club is expecting to have the Welshman ready for Madrid’s upcoming Champions League double-header against Juventus and La Liga El-Clasico against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.

The Blancos president also told on the TV talk show Punta Pelota that Marca’s cruel and story made no sense.

“It is hard to understand such a cruel report,” Perez said. “Above all, because it is not true. I was very surprised. It was the first I heard of this. It is totally false.”

With both the club and Bale’s representatives denying the claims, Perez felt that it came as a surprise to him that a paper like Marca with such a high repute was upto this.

“It is very shocking that a paper that has always been known for serious and correct information, now says something which is not true, and does not tell what they were told by Madrid’s medical services and by Bale’s people,” he said.

He also told that signing an already injured player was a very tough decision to make.

“They told me that Bale was fit, after the medical, and I went to the presentation,” he said. “In the information published they wanted to say that I, despite having the information that he had a problem, wanted to keep going with [the transfer]. They have wanted to charge me with a responsibility that I do not have because nobody told me that the player was not fit. They tried to involve me in this type of set-up, with a bad intention. Either they have hit a goal right in the top corner, or they are trying to foist on us something which does not fit with our history or the prestige of our institution.”

Such opprobrious reports according to him could damage Bale’s value to sponsors and commercial partners.

“All this affects the image, the dignity and the financial performance of Bale,” he said. “The player and his camp are concerned because this can affect their contracts and campaigns. They have said that he had a slipped disk when he does not have it. The legal people are studying what we can do.”