By Kieran Maguire

7th Jan, 2021 | 7:00pm

'Costs more than Bale' - Exclusive: Finance guru reacts to huge West Ham development

Gareth Bale was once the world’s most expensive player but his season-long Tottenham loan will not hit their pocket as hard as the West Ham one has by Sebastien Haller. 

That is as revealed by football finance wizard and new Football Insider columnist Kieran Maguire, who spoke to correspondent Adam Williams after news broke that Haller’s move to Ajax was all but finalised.

The 26-year-old Ivory Coast international is set to cost the Dutch champions around £20million having signed for West Ham from Eintracht Frankfurt in July 2019 in a club-record deal worth £45m.

Taking into account Haller’s £115,000 a week wages and the £25m loss they are set to make on his transfer, he will have cost West Ham just under £34m for one-and-a-half seasons of football and 14 goals.

This, as Maguire highlighted, is far more than on-loan Spurs star Gareth Bale.

He told Football Insider: “If he [Haller] does go to Ajax, that will have cost them more than Gareth Bale did to Spurs. If you look at his wages and the amount they lost from the transfer, they’ll be far, far worse off than the Bale deal.

“And Spurs are in a stronger position than West Ham to withstand the hit because they have made more progress in terms of generating money from a variety of sources over the years.

“But these things aren’t guaranteed, these transfers aren’t risk-free investments, that’s part of the weird and wonderful world of football.”

Bale once cost Real Madrid £85m and became Spurs’ highest earner when he arrived on loan in the summer, costing Tottenham £240,000 a week, 40% of his eye-watering Real Madrid wage of £600,00 a week.

That means his loan will cost Tottenham just shy of £15m for the year, making him 34% cheaper than Haller proportionately.

In other news, a former Spurs hero has given his verdict on the latest contract situation at West Ham.