Wales superstar Gareth Bale has fuelled rumours of a potential fairy-tale move to hometown club Cardiff City this summer.
The 32-year-old is a free agent after departing Real Madrid following nine trophy-laden years in Spain. Earlier this month, he helped his country beat Ukraine in a play-off final to book their place at the World Cup in Qatar later this year - their first appearance on the world stage since 1958.
Bale's next move at club level remains shrouded in mystery but one rumour that refuses to go away is a possible link-up with Cardiff, the city of his birth. On Monday, at a pre-match press conference ahead of Wales' Nations League clash away in the Netherlands, Bale was directly asked for the first time about the possibility of a move to the Championship side.
His reaction was to simply smile, before adding: "I can’t really say." Speaking more broadly about his options for the 2022-23 campaign, he said: "I haven't really thought too much about that.
"It's something I guess I need to sit down and go through, not just with my family, but with the manager here (Rob Page), with the physios here that we use, to see what would give me the best chance of being fit come November and December.
"I don't really know if the standard makes too much of a difference. A football game is a football game. I feel like I'll never really lose my quality on the ball. I guess it's a conversation to be had.
"I haven't really looked at everything yet. I know possible destinations but it's something I need to sit down, first and foremost with my family, and then I need to speak with managers and physios and decide what's best for myself.
"I don't have a timescale. I need time to think what's the best move for me, my family, my kids and hopefully we'll sort that over the summer. I have options."
Last week saw Spanish side Getafe tentatively linked with a move for Bale but he firmly quashed that rumour, saying: "I'm not going to Getafe, that's for sure."
Bluebirds chairman Mehmet Dalman flew into the UK last week to lead negotiations with Bale's representatives. He wants to see whether an ambitious deal can actually be achieved, although it is evident Bale would have to take a monumental pay decrease for any agreement to be reached.
At Madrid, he was estimated to be on a staggering weekly wage of £550,000. In stark contrast, Cardiff's top earner last season was reported to be on £33,000 per week.
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Despite hardly featuring at club level in the last few months, Bale has played in three of Wales' four fixtures in June so far, while he is in contention to turn out against Netherlands in Rotterdam on Tuesday. He added: "Ideally, I would have had more games coming in [to camp] so I would have been even fitter and not had to recover as much as I am at the moment.
"I've been available for quite a lot of the games in Spain, sometimes you just don't get picked so people assume that you're injured. It's that kind of perception, people think I play a lot of golf and I actually don't. People think I'm injured a lot, but I'm actually not. I feel okay. I'll patch myself up and go again."
