Gareth Bale, Real Madrid and the football transfer window - It's not just about money

Managers may complain that the window serves merely as a distraction for players, with the ability to trash well laid plans with a single stroke. Agents may take clubs for a ride, demand sky-high fees and commissions. Players may act up and submit transfer requests at the last possible moment.

Simultaneously, the same managers will use the window to replenish their stock of players, looking for chinks in the team in the first few games. Players may make their dream moves, driven by money or childhood desire. Agents will break their necks while handling three phones at once.

One cannot romanticise the transfer window beyond a point. It’s only a window of opportunity for someone, while the source of misfortune for another. For supporters, it’s the greatest edge-of-the-seat entertainment. Your club might miss out on its targets while your rivals strengthen at the same time. But the drama surrounding the world’s biggest club and its pursuit of a Welsh footballer, while surreal for the uninitiated, is unrelenting.

VILLARREAL, SPAIN – SEPTEMBER 14: Gareth Bale’s heart-shaped celebration on scoring on his debut for Real Madrid.

The transfer window is not about football. It’s about desire, fame, money and survival. But then, so are numerous other things. Football was never white as snow, as it carved its path to become the Earth’s greatest sport. Its evolution did not occur in isolation, but was dictated by the meanderings of human wants and needs.

As I gaze up from my laptop screen and catch the shenanigans of the team in orange in El Madrigal, the left-footed lad from Cardiff scores with his right foot to draw the Galacticos level. Dream move or not, it’s difficult to not be enamoured. A treat from Madrid, via Cardiff.