Gareth Bale: The truth behind the ‘Wales. Golf. Madrid’ flag furore

Gareth Bale has opened up on one of the most infamous moments of his trophy-laden footballing career.

In an extensive and revealing interview with GQ magazine, headlined ‘Gareth Bale has a few things he wants to get off his chest, the Welsh superstar has spoken for the very first time about the controversial moments during his time at Real Madrid.

None were so headline-hitting than the moment during the aftermath of Wales’ victory over Hungary in 2019 which sealed Wales’ qualification for Euro 2020, when Bale was pictured with a flag which read ‘Wales. Golf. Madrid. In that order.’

It sent the Spanish media into meltdown and caused the Cardiff-born legend no end of negative headlines in Madrid.

“That slogan is the one thing I felt hard done by,” Bale told GQ. “For one thing, no one knew how much golf I actually played. I played once every two to three weeks, but only on a day off. I’d never play a game for eight hours, I was always very professional about it. But people don’t know that so they make up that slogan.”

The football star maintains he never actually held the flag and felt helpless as photographers snapped away.

“We’d just qualified for the Euros so I’m obviously celebrating, the whole team’s there, then someone puts the flag [with the slogan] in front of me. What am I supposed to do? I’m like, I can’t throw my own country’s flag on the floor because that is the worst thing I could do. I actually didn’t physically ever touch the flag, which for me was important because I was like, it’s not me doing this – I’m just celebrating with my friends. Then what happened happened.”

He remembers the aftermath and the vitriol of the Spanish press.

“I got absolutely slaughtered [by the Spanish media]. I felt a bit hard done by because it all comes down to misinformation. I obviously don’t prioritise golf more than I do my country and my club and physically haven’t done one thing wrong. I look back at it now and it’s like, it is what it is. I can’t do anything about it. You have to laugh or you cry. So I laughed.”

Bale recalls the mental strength he called upon when he played his first game for Madrid after the flag controversy.

“I still remember that game I came on for the last 30 minutes [against Real Sociedad at the Bernabéu four days later], I was getting fully whistled, then by the end I was getting applauded. I played so well. In the car driving home, my agent called me and he was like, you are literally insane. No one can deal with that type of pressure and come on and do those things – you’re just weird. And I’m like, well luckily I’m mentally strong. If other people were in my situation, I’m not sure they would’ve coped.”

As for which three words he would write on a Welsh flag now, he says: “Now, I would put family first. Probably golf second. Then health.”

As for retiring when he did, Bale remains philosophical.

“There’s still things I wish had gone differently but the world’s not perfect. Wales winning the World Cup would’ve been a dream. I always like to think back to when I was a kid, what did I actually want to do as a footballer. If you had offered me [my] career when I was 13, I would never have believed you in a million years. A kid from Cardiff who comes from a normal family, to go on and do what I did. I achieved so much in my career so playing in a World Cup was pretty much the last thing that I wanted to achieve. It didn’t go amazingly well for us, but it was the first time in 64 years. After that, I didn’t feel like I had anything else left to achieve, goal-wise.

“I played a football game the other day and yeah, I definitely couldn’t keep playing so the decision was definitely correct.”

READ THE FULL GQ INTERVIEW WITH GARETH BALE HERE