Gareth Bale warns greed could harm footballer welfare as matches pile up – and backs calls to scrap VAR
Gareth Bale has revealed to Sky News concerns football could become “too greedy”, with players’ mental and physical well-being endangered by growing fixture demands.
The former Wales captain, who won every major honour with Real Madrid, urged football authorities to act so “it doesn’t take something bad to happen for that to change”.
In his first notable interview since retiring in January 2023, Bale reflected on the highs and lows of an illustrious career, assessed the wider state of the game – including what he describes as the need to scrap VAR – and expressed admiration for Jude Bellingham’s immediate impact at Madrid.
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Bale on why he doesn’t like VAR
Bale retired at 33 as a five-time Champions League winner with Madrid – becoming Britain’s most successful male footballing export while still facing difficult times winning over fans in Spain.
The pressures he felt are now only growing as competitions add matches, much to the frustration of global players’ union FIFPRO.
Bale said in an exclusive interview with Sky News: “The intensity and the quickness [are] only getting higher, and it’s very difficult to continue playing at that high level.
“And then when the level comes down, you only get scrutinised.”
He said that while “everybody understands that money … plays a big part” and “more games means more money”, players “want to play the right amount of games where you can cope with it without it being dangerous”.
He added: “It’s a very fine line, but hopefully everybody can come together and come to a right resolution for player welfare.”
Gareth Bale lifting the Champions League trophy for Real Madrid in 2018. Pic: PA
Some players now could be required for more than 85 matches in a season for club and country with FIFA introducing a new 32-team Club World Cup every four years and UEFA expanding the Champions League.
“The amount of fixtures is becoming more and more and it’ll just become more demanding – and hopefully it doesn’t take something bad to happen for that to change,” Bale said.
“Looking after the players is an important thing. They’re the ones who are growing the game, bringing the fans in to watch them.”
Asked about hopes for football, Bale replied: “It’s just about staying together as one and without certain things getting too greedy.”
‘VAR only made it worse’
One thing he certainly doesn’t miss is video assistant referees delaying celebrations and ruling out goals.
Premier League clubs are set to vote next week on whether to scrap VAR.
VAR, Bale says, was “supposed to take away the controversy in football and it’s only made it worse – I like the human error aspect”.
“Things in slow motion look a lot worse than they do in real time. So, when you slow things down, a handball looks way more of a handball than it does in real action.
“So I don’t like it. I would like to see it gone personally.”
‘Fantastic’ Bellingham
Bale led Tottenham into the Champions League for the first time before an £85m move to Madrid in 2013.
Jude Bellingham has been ‘fantastic’. Pic: PA
The 14-time European champions are back in the final on Saturday at Wembley Stadium against Borussia Dortmund – a notable homecoming for Jude Bellingham after a wondrous first season in the Spanish capital.
The 20-year-old English star has already won LaLiga with 19 goals and six assists.
“At such a young age to be doing what he’s doing is fantastic,” Bale said. “It’s great to see, it’s refreshing and it’s important.”
It is especially important to get off to a good start at a club of such history and tradition like Real Madrid, he said.
“The intensity, the pressure that you can feel under…,” said Bale.
“So, he had a great start so far. Obviously, they still have a big game to come and it’ll be great for him to win a Champions League in his first season, that really settles the pressure and, hopefully, he can kick on from there.”
Ups and downs in Madrid
Life in Madrid wasn’t always easy for Bale, with jeers from his own fans despite being so integral on the big occasions with memorable goals like the scissor kick in the 2018 Champions League final win over Liverpool.
Gareth Bale scoring a spectacular overhead kick against Liverpool. Pic PA
“Of course, there’s always going to be ups and downs,” Bale said. “It’s how you deal with those, how you bounce back, how your character comes out.
“There were obviously some great times, there were obviously some bad. But, I think normally the good outweighs the bad in the end.”
Undoubtedly the biggest moments of pride came with his country – leading Wales to the Euro 2016 semifinals and ending their 62-year World Cup exile in 2022.
“If you’d told me when I was a young kid that I would have the career I did, I probably would never have believed you,” Bale said. “I feel like I overachieved”.
“But I think as you get older, your goals change, your body changes, your talent kind of takes over, the hard work kicks in.”
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Now there is more time for golf and family.
“It’s been really nice just to take a step back and have that pressure just relieved a bit,” he said.
“So it’s been good. Obviously I’ve spoken to people when they’ve retired. It’s all about keeping stuff a little bit busy.”
Climate concern
Bale also expressed concern over how football impacts climate change – and stressed the importance of not neglecting the environment while chasing sporting glory.
His message for collective action on sustainability features alongside those of other players, clubs and fans on a Pledge Ball made from recycled boots by Champions League sponsor Mastercard.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
“It’s difficult to make big changes,” Bale said. “It’s always about making those little changes.”
Bale urged the media “to write about the good things, not the bad things”, mentioning Lewis Hamilton as an example of somebody who is “doing a lot of good” and gets “unfair” treatment.
“He made such a massive effort to kind of change his environment and to do right,” Bale said of the F1 driver.
“And then people forget all the hard work he’s done and write maybe about just the small, I guess, negative where he drives an F1 car, which is obviously CO2. So, people need to realise that he’s doing a lot of good and not just that little bit of not bad.
“So, I think for him to make such a big change was massive. But to get the scrutiny I guess he got was very unfair.”
The sense is Bale also prefers life without scrutiny, away from the football spotlight with no desire to become a coach.
“I’m enjoying time, being at home with the family, spending more time with the kids,” he said.
“Enjoying life, to be honest.”
Fewer police officers are working on unsolved murder cases amid warnings the Metropolitan Police is dangerously stretched.
Five officers from the force are moving from a specialist cold case department investigating the 30-year-old murder of Atek Hussain to instead bolster basic command units.
Mr Hussain, 32, was stabbed in the heart as he returned from work in September 1994. He managed to stagger to his home and tell his family that his attackers were Asian before collapsing.
No charges have ever been brought in the case despite two focused appeals by the police on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of his killing.
Mr Hussain’s daughter Yasmin was 10 when she watched her father die in their family home. She told Sky News she had hoped the Met would launch a renewed appeal on the 30th anniversary of his death this week.
“I waited and waited as September approached, hoping they’d say something but all of the officers I’d been dealing with have either retired or moved on, and it seems nobody knows what to do with me,” she said.
“One person told me to call 101.”
Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help to find her father’s killers
The Met told Sky News the case is not currently active. However, no unsolved murder investigation is ever closed and Mr Hussain’s case was last reviewed by its Serious Crime Review Group in August.
“Should any new information come to light, it will be assessed accordingly,” it said in a statement.
“In order to better protect the public, including the prevention of future homicides, we are moving some experienced officers from specialist units to bolster BCU (basic command unit) public protection teams to ensure they have the right skills, experience and capacity.
“The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) continues to maintain a strong capability to investigate cold case homicides. No unsolved homicide is ever closed and all cases remain under review.”
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Clive Driscoll, a former Detective Chief Inspector of the Met Police who finally secured two convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, explains how the forces deal with cold cases.
“Every two years you would review the case to see if there are opportunities. The one that always stands out is forensics opportunities. Forensics moved on while we’ve been talking. So that’s what you would do with a review, you would be looking to see whether or not something has changed from the last time you saw it.”
Mr Driscoll says forces across the country are facing challenges including a shortage of officers and staff, greater scrutiny of the police and an issue with confidence among officers.
Former Met Police DCI Clive Driscoll
“They feel that maybe their job has become harder,” he told Sky News before urging police units to go the extra mile.
“As hard as it may be for a police officer, it can’t be even a slightest comparison of how hard it must be for Mr Hussain’s children who’ve lost their father.”
Recent data shows the annual number of unsolved homicides across Britain has more than doubled since 2010. That is thought to be driven almost entirely by a surge in larger police forces, in particular the Met.
On Wednesday, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the force as “dangerously stretched”, telling an audience at the Police Foundation that a wave of new pressures, a lack of investment, abuse and insults of the police and reduced confidence among officers has left London less safe.
Mr Driscoll warned that failing to properly review unsolved homicides sends a dangerous message.
“We don’t want to send the message out to people that feel they can take the life of a human being and after a certain amount of time ‘oh that’s alright then I’ve got away with it’. The message must always be that if there is an opportunity to affect an arrest, put someone before a court then we will take it. We must always show that we will not forget the victim and also that out there is someone who felt that they can take someone’s life.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Atek Hussain had spent the evening working at his family-run restaurant in Croydon before arriving home to Burnels Avenue in East Ham at around 2.35am on 18 September 1994.
Officers believe he had just got out of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier and was walking towards his front door when he was attacked and stabbed in the chest.
In the absence of a renewed public plea from the police, Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help finding her father’s killers.
If you have information that could help police, call 101 or post @MetCC, or to remain 100% anonymous contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
UK
Mohamed al Fayed ‘carried Viagra’ and ‘cherry picked’ women from Harrods shop floor, ex-employee claims
A former member of the Harrods management team has told how Mohamed al Fayed would “cherry pick” women from the shop floor.
Speaking to Sky News anonymously, the woman described the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, as “demonic” and said he “controlled everything with fear”.
Lawyers representing 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Fayed branded him a “monster” who was “enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods” at a news conference on Friday.
The former employee of the luxury department store, which the Egyptian businessman took control of in 1985, worked at Harrods at the height of his power.
“We were all told Harrods is the greatest place on Earth – but he controlled everything with fear,” she said.
“The power dynamic was so strong, in the blink of an eye you would lose your career and they would try and destroy you. It was this dark psychological trap and everybody was caught.”
She said she heard stories Fayed, known to staff as “the chairman”, would grope people although she was never a victim herself.
Harrods department store in London. Pic: AP
“The chairman would walk around the store and he would cherry pick people from the shop floor, if you had blond hair and brown eyes you were favoured,” she said.
“He used to say, ‘I want that one up in my office now’. He used to carry Viagra around in his pocket, and people were so scared of his ‘floor walks’ – if you weren’t smiling enough you were in the shit, if you smiled too much you were also in the shit.”
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The ex-employee, who worked at Harrods in her first job after leaving university, said when women were called to Fayed’s office they “couldn’t say no”.
“I would sit her down and I would say I need to let you know what you are walking into,” she said.
“It’s suddenly a pay rise, and you’ll be invited to expensive events and lavished with expensive gifts but really you need to be aware of something.
“I said you will get invited to Park Lane, and parties where there will be lots of rich men, and you would be invited to sleep with people.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
She said she was once asked to see Fayed in his lounge-like office where he was wearing his slippers and said: “When are you going to come up and work for me here?”
The woman said she told him she did not want to work there and went back to her normal job.
“Afterwards he would smile at me and was courteous but then I started getting extra money in my pay packet. I went to the pay office and they said it’s a bonus for what you are doing. It didn’t last long but it happened just after he’d asked to meet him.”
The woman said she now feels “really conflicted” as she was “vulnerable too”.
“It was my first job leaving university. It leaves me feeling angry that we put up with things in that generation, that was our norm,” she added.
Harrods has said in a statement it is “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
A body has been found in the search for a missing hospital chaplain who starred in a Channel 4 documentary.
Katherine Watson, 50, was last seen in the Heaton Road area of Newcastle, at about 1pm on Thursday and Northumbria Police had become “increasingly concerned” for her welfare.
But after “extensive searches”, the force said a body had been found in the Jesmond Dene area of the city. Although formal identification has yet to take place, “it is believed to be Katherine”, they added.
“Her next of kin have been made aware and are being supported by specially-trained officers,” it said.
“This is an incredibly sad outcome and our thoughts are with Katherine’s loved ones at this difficult time. We will continue to support them in any way we can and we ask that their privacy is respected.”
Also known as Reverend Captain Katie Watson, she joined the army in her late teens, serving in Bosnia in the 1990s and as part of the Royal Military Police.
“Once you have seen genocide first-hand on the streets of a European country, there is nothing left in the world that can faze you after that,” she told the Church Times in 2022, as the Geordie Hospital documentary was first aired on Channel 4.
“I have seen the worst of humanity and I have seen, and continue to see, the very best of it.”
Ms Watson worked at the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for more than 16 years and was made head of chaplaincy in 2020.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Channel 4’s documentary Geordie Hospital was a six-part series that filmed hospital staff through a shift, featuring a cast including porters, surgeons, dental nurses and chaplains.
Speaking about her role in the show, Ms Watson said: “We only have two things to offer, the gifts of time and presence, but we give them whole-heartedly.”
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There was an outpouring of support online for Ms Watson following the news she was missing.
“She baptised our baby boy when he passed away at birth and presided over his funeral,” one person wrote on X. “She’s such a wonderful person who gave us unwavering support through our darkest hours.”
Another said: “The compassion and care you gave me and my family when our mum passed last year was a tremendous blessing and support.”
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