Real Madrid 'rejected £89m Gareth Bale bid from Premier League club'

Former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon has claimed that the club turned down a €100m (£89.3m) bid for Gareth Bale from an unnamed Premier League side last summer.

Bale has been tipped to leave the Spanish champions for a number of transfer windows now, and was also thought to be close to a lucrative move to the Chinese Super League last summer.

However, the 31-year-old recently claimed that Madrid were making it "very difficult" for him to leave, despite manager Zinedine Zidane not considering him part of his first-team plans at the Bernabeu.

Bale started only 12 La Liga matches last season as Los Blancos dethroned Barcelona, but Calderon claims that Zidane thought Bale would play a bigger role at the start of the campaign.

"I know in the last day of the transfer window last year there was an offer from the Premier League," Calderon told talkSPORT.

"They offered €100m and Real Madrid turned down that offer because they thought Bale would be a player in their side.

"I'm not allowed to say the name, though I do know the name of the club. I think at the end there was a disagreement as Madrid decided not to sell the player, because they thought he was a player who could be used and be in the starting lineup."

Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are the two Premier League sides to have been most heavily linked with Bale recently.