R. Madrid to spend £125m on Bale + Suarez

REAL MADRID are ready to break the world transfer record by spending as much as £85million on Gareth Bale, as well as signing Luis Suarez for £40m. Combining the two Premier League stars with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema would then give Madrid the first quarter-billion-pound forward line.

Recruiting Bale and Suarez, who scored 44 Premier League goals between them last season and in Bale's case won multiple Player of the Year awards, forms part of Florentino Perez’s campaign to be re-elected as Madrid’s president. Perez started his second term by signing Kaka and then Ronaldo for record transfer fees of €65m (now £56m) and £80m, before committing a further €41m (now £35m) to securing Benzema. Seeking to mitigate the fallout from Jose Mourinho’s decision to leave for Chelsea, the Spanish businessman has returned to a familiar strategy to secure his re-election for another term.

Perez also needs to respond to Barcelona’s success in finally securing Neymar's transfer from Santos last week. He will fly to Spain to complete formalities after today’s Brazil-England friendly. Barça had held the option on Neymar since 2011 but Perez had hoped to tempt him to the Bernabeu by spending up to €100m on the transfer, third-party ownership, penalty payments and signing-on fees.