From Beckham to Bale, a tale of two transfer eras

Gareth Bale may be the first British galectico that Real Madrid have signed since David Beckham in 2003, but the differences between the two transfers shows how the world of football has moved on in the last decade. In a sense there has been a revolution in the way transfers are done and mega million transfers of high profile players have truly come of age.

It shows how much more skilful agents are, how a chairman like Daniel Levy, for all the brickbats he gets, can mould things to his own liking, even when the club he is pushing is Real Madrid, and that Real Madrid, living up to its status as the world's biggest club, no longer feels the need to justify what it does, certainly not try and curry favour with the press of a foreign country. It also shows how players have changed, at least in their public utterances when it comes to such transfers.