‘It was a simple decision’: Gareth Bale says one person made it very easy for him to decide against joining Manchester United

Gareth Bale has now revealed the reason why he turned down a move to Manchester United during the peak of his career.

Bale was linked with a move to Manchester United multiple times during his career but the move never happened.

And the former Tottenham star has now disclosed that the closest he came to joining United was in 2013 when he was at his peak.

Before completing the then-record transfer to Real Madrid, there was strong interest from United who wanted to sign him after having just won their 20th Premier League title.

However, the Welshman ended up deciding against joining the Red Devils and he has now revealed it was down to one person, Sir Alex Ferguson.

Gareth Bale says he turned down move to Man United because of Sir Alex Ferguson

Bale has revealed that the decision to turn down Manchester United was an easy one due to the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson had just retired from the club.

With Ferguson gone, Bale felt that the club did not have the aura anymore. He admitted that had Alex Ferguson still been in charge, the decision between picking Madrid and United would have been much harder.

Speaking to talkSPORT Drive, he revealed: “I was close to joining Man Utd a couple of times. The closest was when I actually joined Real Madrid. It was between United and Real, and at the time Fergie had left, so it didn’t quite have that aura.

“It would have been a bigger factor [if Fergie had stayed]. Having such a legendary manager, somebody with that kind of pedigree who you kind of trust with your career. It would have made the decision a lot harder but ultimately he wasn’t [staying], so it was a simple decision.

“The [United] team was ageing a bit, and I’d always had my heart set on Madrid anyway. I feel like I made the right decision in the end, not to be horrible to Man Utd fans, I feel I made the right choice.”

Manchester United’s downfall after Sir Alex Ferguson shows Gareth Bale was right

As it turns out, the Welshman ended up making the right decision for his career as Bale went on to become one of the best in the world.

Meanwhile, Manchester United never recovered from Alex Ferguson’s retirement.

David Moyes replaced him after being handpicked by Ferguson himself as his successor. And in fact, it was Moyes who wanted to bring Bale to United.

However, not only did Bale not sign but Moyes struggled to manage the pressure of managing a massive club like Man United and was sacked 10 months later.

Since then, a string of managers — including Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and Erik ten Hag have come and gone, each failing to bring sustained success or restore United’s dominance in the league.

The club now finds itself in arguably its darkest period of the Premier League era. United are set for a 16th-placed finish, their worst-ever finish in the league.

They also lost the Europa League final to Tottenham on Wednesday night, their last shot at salvaging an already disastrous season.

The problems at United seem to run deeper than just managerial changes and perhaps something drastic needs to be done behind the scenes in order to get United back to where they were.

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