Gareth Bale, the former Wales captain and decorated club star, has admitted that throughout his glittering football career he carried a very real fear: that one day he might go bankrupt. Despite earning vast sums at the highest levels of the game, Bale says he was always conscious of the possibility that life after football could bring financial peril if not managed with care.
Bale, 36, who played for clubs including Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, and most notably Real Madrid before finishing his career with LAFC and after appearing in the 2022 World Cup, spoke candidly in a recent interview about these anxieties. “There was one thing that always scared me inside,” Bale said. “You read articles about when people finish professional sports, they go bankrupt. They don’t know how to manage their money, they don’t know how to do all these things.”
The fear, he explained, stemmed in part from observing the missteps of athletes who, having earned large salaries, struggled once their contracts ended, when the paychecks stopped. “When I finish, I stop getting the pay cheque. How do people then restructure their lives?” he asked rhetorically. “A lot of, I imagine, athletes live a big, lavish lifestyle. I try not to do that. I always had one eye on what life would be like after football.”
Although Bale was among the highest-paid players in world football — his six-year, £150 million deal with Real Madrid, signed in 2016, is among the more famous examples — he says he never took financial security for granted.
According to public estimates, his net worth today is around £120 million. Despite that, he views money as something to be treated with respect, not indulgence. “So I was always trying to diversify from quite early on,” he said, describing a strategy he likens to constructing a building with multiple pillars. “I always had this pillar idea where I would try and invest my money in different things. If one pillar got chopped down and didn’t work, the whole building is not going to fall down.”
The former winger has put these ideas into practice. Beyond the world of professional sport, Bale has launched business ventures, invested in property and hospitality, and has expressed interest in club ownership. He owns establishments in his hometown area of Cardiff, including Elevens Bar and Par 59, a mini-golf themed bar.
Bale has also invested in a Welsh distillery and the Tiger Woods-backed TGL golf league. Bale has taken punditry roles as well, working with TNT Sports among others, to maintain alternative streams of income.
For many fans, such candour from a player who enjoyed one of the most successful club careers in modern European football is unusual. Bale won multiple UEFA Champions League titles, La Liga championships, and numerous domestic honours, and achieved global recognition.
Yet even in the midst of success, the fear of financial decline loomed large. As he puts it, earning big paychecks was never enough by itself to ease the anxiety of what would come after the final whistle.