Wake Me Up when Gareth Bale Joins: the Drama of Bale’s Move to Suning, an External Timeline
8:12 PM, July 28th, Sunday. The last match day before Chinese Super League transfer window shuts. Jiangsu Suning was 1–0 ahead over Shenzhen Kaisa at Nanjing Olympics. The first half was almost finished. Alex Teixeira opened for Suning early into the match.
Suddenly all fans shifted their focus to a piece of breaking news, released from BBC journalist, David Ornstein:
With further report, it said the president of Real Madrid, Florentino, has turned down the deal, Welsh super star Gareth Bale won’t join CSL side Jiangsu Suning.
Back to July 14th, when Suning lose to SIPG 0–3 at Nanjing Olympics. A massive protest from fans was under going against the club, for cheating them with little investment and ambition. Suning refused to communicate with fans. However, the original foreign player candidate Pavkov was secretly dismissed. And a rumour connected Gareth Bale and Suning, for the first time.
It’s like typical “unnamed Chinese club” rumour that linking super star to random Chinese club. Based on previous signings Suning delivered this year, nobody took it seriously.
On July 21st, things were getting interesting. Real Madrid manager, Zidane, shocked the world by telling media that he hopes Bale could leave as soon as possible.
July 22nd, Monday. Chinese journalist Bai Guohua said on Weibo that from reliable source, Suning is actually in negotiations with Bale’s agent and they are pretty close to an agreement.
Based on what we have known about, at that time, Suning should have reached an early agreement with Real Madrid club, that Suning is allowed to talk with Bale’s agent Barnett about wages.
It takes a few days for negotiation between two sides. During this period, there were news released from both side. The social media become a battlefield. Tension increased dramatically.
Fast forward to July 26th, Friday. A few Jiangsu local journalists, as directed by Suning PR, start to spread the word that Suning is going to sign Bale very soon.
We suspect that on Friday, Suning has reached agreement with Bale’s agent. The annual wage can be as high as €25m, as rumour said. This was a major milestone and Suning’s PR thought it was OK to start marketing on this biggest star in CSL history.
July 27th, Saturday. Real Madrid was trashed by their derby rival Athletic Madrid with a huge 7–3. Gareth Bale spotted smiling on bench and also on pitch when RM was down to 1–7.
I’m sure at this moment, both sides, Bale and Suning were pretty optimistic with the transfer. And Bale himself was also determined to leave.
Then Suning moved forward to next stage, to finalize with Real Madrid club about the last detail. By analysing the situation, you will find Suning dominated the race:
- Real Madrid had to let Bale go to save money for Pogba
- Zidane already broke up with Bale publicly. RM changing room became fragile if their highest paid player is a golf player
- No side but Suning can afford Bale’s huge wage
Based on the situation, also consider:
- Suning threw all its budget at Bale’s wage
- Chinese FA requires 100% tax on any player transfer above €5m
We believe Suning could have refused to pay ANY transfer fee to Real Madrid. And the RM club accepted initially. However, as we already know, the transfer was stopped by RM president, or its board. The board believe selling Bale for free will hurt their brand, and it would be a big lose in terms of value (even bigger than a broken changing room). Then on Saturday night we start to see rumour about Ivan Santini linked with Suning:
9:00 AM, July 29th, Monday, Nanjing. In no time, Jiangsu Suning officially announced Croatian forward Ivan Santini joined, which closed the door to Bale. The Chinese characters on the poster was an ancient saying for what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
July 29th, Munich. Bale missed Audi Cup. Zidane told media Bale was not fit. But later the Welshman was spotted playing his favourite golf.
So sad this ends up in a lose-lose situation where:
- Suning failed to sign the big name and still deep in turmoil with fans
- Bale has to stay in Real Madrid and have little chance to play
- Zidane has to deal with the changing room and felt not fully supported by the board
- Real Madrid has to pay Bale’s huge wage in next three years and it highly like to be wasted
As our community writer Terry G analyzed in previous blog, signing Bale was high risky to Suning:
- Will the big money convert to value?
- Will Bale get well with the team, Olariou, Alex Teixeira and everybody?
- Will Bale strong enough to play in next 2–3 years
- Will Bale lucky enough to survive from Qin Sheng, Li Jianbin and Sun Shilin’s tackle?
These are questions never to be answered. We can’t say it’s a 100% disappoint result for Suning. But after all, to miss big name like Gareth Bale, is unfortunate.
