Gareth Bale completes world-record €100m (£85.2m) move to Real Madrid

Gareth Bale is finally a Real Madrid player after the club reached an agreement with Tottenham which will see the winger move to the Bernabeu.

Bale has signed a six-year contract at Real, and he will be presented at the Bernabéu at 1pm Monday.

The Welshman's move was confirmed after Tottenham's 1-0 defeat in the north London derby, with the player quoted on Spurs' website as saying that it represented a "dream come true". The 24-year-old has been desperate to join Real and Real alone, and late interest from Manchester United made no difference to him.

Madrid had been keen to sign Bale for some time, but Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was reluctant to sell the club’s prized asset and, at first, resisted their approach.

However, the player’s representatives told the club at the end of July that he wanted to speak to Madrid.

Levy was keen to emphasise that the club did everything reasonably possible to prevent Bale from moving, but also noted that several players have been brought into White Hart Lane, including Roberto Soldado, Christian Eriksen and Paulinho.

“Gareth was a player we had absolutely no intention of selling as we look to build for the future. He is a player whose career we have fostered and developed and he was only a year into his new four year contract,” Levy told the club’s official website.

Bale joined Spurs from Southampton in 2007 and went on to make 203 appearances, scoring 55 goals, for the north London club.

The £85.2 million fee eclipses the £80m Real paid Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.