Barcelona Would Not Have Matched Tottenham Hotspur's Asking Price for Bale

Sandro Rosell, the Barcelona president, has further stoked the fire with rivals Real Madrid by claiming the Catalans would not have been foolish enough to match Tottenham Hotspur astronomical valuation of Gareth Bale.

The Wales international joined Los Blancos on the penultimate day of the transfer window for a reported world record fee of €100m, greater than what Madrid paid for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.

The deal to take Bale to the Bernabeu was the definitive transfer saga of the summer and months of negotiations between Madrid president Florentino Perez and Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy saw the Spurs man recoup a world record fee.

Barcelona had earlier in the summer clinched a deal for Brazilian superstar Neymar having previously been linked with a move for Bale, but Rosell says a deal of such size was beyond the club's financial limits.

"I wouldn't have paid €100 million [to Tottenham for Bale]," he told TV3.

"Barcelona cannot allow for that. If we pay €100m, people would go crazy. Madrid is a private institution and if their socios allow it, then I have nothing to say.

"We need to tell Tata that he can't always say what he thinks, but he was speaking from the heart."

Tottenham were able to use the money gained from the sale of Bale to break their transfer record three times in the summer window as they signing seven new players to bolster their squad.

Both Barcelona and Madrid are registered associations with shareholders or members who elect the club president who is then not eligible to invest his own money into the club. While Perez was content to sanction such a large offer for Bale, Rosell says he was unwilling to make such a financial sacrifice.

Madrid's valuation of Bale has raised plenty of eyebrows across world football, not least from Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who says the deal is at odds with financial fair play regulations.

"It makes a joke of the financial fair play regulations," Wenger said in August.

"I find it amazing that in the year the regulations come in, world football has gone completely crazy. You wonder what kind of impact and effect financial fair play has on the football world.

"It looks like it has made everybody worse than before."

Since, Wenger has splashed out a club record fee on signing Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid in a record breaking summer for Premier League clubs in the summer transfer window.