If it were easy, Gareth Bale would have been gone by now. But it isn’t. His high salary, and the fact that few clubs are willing to match it, makes getting rid of him an extremely difficult operation.
The Welshman cannot be blamed for the fact that Madrid bet heavily on him. And no one can blame him for not wanting to give up his lucrative contract, especially when he feels he has been the object of such grievance on the part of the press, his teammates and the club. But at the same time, Madrid is not to blame for having ended up with a useless player with two years left on his contract, who is the highest earner in the squad along with Sergio Ramos.
At this point, all that really matters is what is being done to get him out of the club. Madrid do not want to give up on collecting a decent transfer fee, but at the end of the day they could let him go on a free and save the €60 million that they must pay out during the last two years of his contract.
Another outcome, and the one that could most likely become reality, would be if Madrid pay him one year’s salary of the remaining two on his contract in order for him to leave. In this case, Madrid would still save €30 million.