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Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale has said he would “definitely be interested” in playing in Major League Soccer in the future.
The Wales international — who has a contract at the Bernabeu until 2022 — came close to leaving the club last summer, before a move to China broke down.
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“I really like the league,” Bale told The Hat-Trick podcast. “It’s grown so much over the years. When we come over and play now in pre-season, the games are difficult. The standard is a lot better. All the clubs are improving, the facilities are improving, the stadiums are improving.
“It’s a league that’s on the up and still rising, and I think a lot more players want to come over to America now to play. I’d definitely be interested in it. I love going to Los Angeles on holiday.”
Bale has been training at home since Madrid’s training ground was quarantined on March 12 when one of the club’s basketball players tested positive for coronavirus.
The 30-year-old is donating over €1 million to hospitals in Wales and Spain to help fight the pandemic, giving £500,000 to a charity connected to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where he was born, and a similar amount to healthcare services in Madrid.
“I think everybody knows what a difficult time the whole world is going through at the moment,” he added. “We took our time to do a bit of research and look around and we decided that we wanted help. We wanted to give back to Cardiff where I’m from, to the hospital I was born in, they’ve done a lot for us.”
La Liga’s players are due to undergo testing next week as a first step in a return to training, with the league hoping to resume the 2019-20 season in mid-June.
Bale has endured a difficult campaign, struggling with injuries and at times, being left out of the squad completely by coach Zinedine Zidane, scoring just two goals in 14 league appearances.
He came under fierce criticism for celebrating Wales’ qualification for Euro 2020 in November with teammates holding a “Wales. Golf. Madrid. In that order” banner.
“They found it and brought it down and we were all celebrating as a team,” he said. “I’m not going to not jump around with my teammates. It was a bit of banter, a bit of fun. People can see it how they like. We were just celebrating on the pitch and having a laugh, it was just one of those things.”