Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona has told Real Madrid that they should sell Gareth Bale and attempt to replace him with Paris Saint-Germain loanee Kylian Mbappe.
Gareth Bale has been linked with Manchester United on a consistent basis and it seems as if a summer transfer could be possible. That being said, manager Zinedine Zidane has spoken of Bale’s importance to the club and has gone on record to say he would like to keep the Welsh winger at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Bale joined Real Madrid in 2013 for a then world record fee of over £80million from Tottenham Hotspur. He has been excellent for the club when fit, but he has missed the majority of this season through injury. Thankfully he is back in the squad now, and scored the winner in Real’s Club World Cup semi-final against Al Jazira.
Maradona Not Impressed
Even with that recent goal, Maradona is not impressed with Bale’s overall contribution. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper AS had this to say:
“Bale? Let them sell Bale or give him away, although Florentino (Perez) is less likely to give him away… but I think they had to sign Mbappe.”
This is pretty harsh on Bale, who is certainly a world class player. Plus, any deal for Kylian Mbappe would now be incredibly difficult to pull off as PSG already have a deal in place to sign the young French international on a permanent basis.
Mbappe has impressed so far this season, linking up with Neymar and Edinson Cavani to create one of the best strike forces in the world. Maradona went on to say that the reason why Real didn’t sign Mbappe was due to the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Why did they not sign him? I told Florentino to sign Mbappe. I told him when we saw each other at Fifa. He told me… ‘but you know I have Cristiano’.”
