ToTTenham director Keith mills has admitted the club are almost powerless to keep Gareth Bale (below) if he wants to move to Real madrid, even though he signed a new four-year contract only last summer.
Real madrid have confirmed they are in talks with Tottenham over Bale and a potential world record transfer, with Spurs said to be demanding in excess of £80m.
Tottenham manager andre Villas-Boas has said that Bale is not for sale, but Spurs recognise any attempts to keep the Wales international against his will would be futile. mills said: "We very much want Bale to stay. "If a player is desperate to leave, it's very difficult to force him to stay. "even if he has a contract, you can't force somebody to play for you."
Villas-Boas' comments prompted a report in the Spanish media that Bale would stay away from the training ground yesterday but they proved unfounded as the 24-year-old and he spent five hours at the Spurs training complex.
Tottenham have insisted their decision to remove Bale's image from their Twitter page was unrelated to the saga. his image had been on the left of the page with Clint Dempsey's on the right. Spurs explained that the page was redesigned following Dempsey's sale to the Seattle Sounders.