Enlarge image
Gareth Bale in the Wales national team shirt
Photo: Lisi Niesner REUTERS
Welsh football star Gareth Bale is retiring with immediate effect.
The 33-year-old surprisingly announced this on social media on Monday.
He published two longer statements on this.
"After careful and careful consideration, I hereby announce my retirement from association and international football," Bale wrote.
He feels "incredibly happy that I was able to realize my dream of playing the sport I love," Bale continued: "He really gave me some of the most beautiful moments in life." This includes his magic goal, among other things with an overhead kick for Real Madrid against Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League final.
Madrid won the game in Kyiv 3-1 (0-0).
Bale joined Real Madrid from Tottenham Hotspur for €100m in 2013 and has won the Champions League five times with the Whites.
However, he also went through difficult phases there.
In 2019 he was sidelined, coach Zinédine Zidane increasingly relied on other players.
Bale was frustrated and expressed it in the dressing room.
“I still have three years of contract.
If they want me to leave, they have to pay me 17 million euros per season.
Otherwise I'll stay here and just play golf,« he is said to have told his fellow players.
Most recently, he played in Major League Soccer (MLS) with Los Angeles FC and won the championship.
With Wales he took part in two European Championships and the World Cup in Qatar.
At Euro 2016 in France, Wales led by Bale reached the semi-finals.
Bale is now "full of anticipation" in the next phase of life.
"A time of change and transition, an opportunity for a new adventure," he wrote, without giving details.
At the World Cup in Qatar last year, he failed with Wales in the preliminary round.
After that, he initially announced that he would continue to be available to the team.
The decision to retire from the national team was "by far the toughest of my career," said Bale.
see/dpa/sid
