Cardiff City chairman Mehmet Dalman has spoken for the first time about the Bluebirds' audacious bid to land Gareth Bale and revealed just how close the 'dream' deal was to happening.
Bale's agents initiated the negotiations by approaching Dalman because the Wales captain 'wanted to come to Cardiff', it has been disclosed.
The Bluebirds spent weeks putting together a complicated package which met Bale's demands and the sensational move seemed likely to happen. But at the 11th hour Bale appeared to have a change of mind and instead opted to move to America where he signed for LAFC on the west coast.
Dalman was the man tasked with the negotiations for Cardiff and he says at one point he really thought it was going to be a done deal. He emphasises again, however, there are no hard feelings and Cardiff fully respect Bale's decision to choose America over his home town club.
Dalman revealed what really happened on the ACEcast_Nation Podcast, where he took part in a Q&A on Thursday night.
He told the presenter: "Look, I don't want to say too much because what we discussed with Gareth is confidential.
"What I will say is that his agents approached me, in fact we had lunch with his agents. They explained Gareth would like to come to Cardiff and I explained we'd love to have him at Cardiff.
"Then we spent three weeks thrashing out a deal that met with their expectations. Obviously LAFC came in and he chose to go there.
"We really thought at one point it was a dream coming true for us, but he chose to go to a different country, a different challenge. We have to respect that and we do.
"There are no hard feelings, he was a gentleman to deal with, his agents were professional in the way they dealt with us. He really is a great man, I mean it when I say publicly I wish him the very best - and for Wales because we need him to work his magic at the World Cup."
Dalman continued: "Do I think he should have come to Cardiff? Of course I do. I think he should definitely have come to the capital city of Wales. He'd have been a massive boost for Welsh football, especially with the World Cup coming up. He'd have got pretty much the whole of Wales buzzing from a football perspective.
"But at the end of day we have to respect his decision. He dealt professionally with us; he personally called me to tell me of his decision, he didn't want us to hear of it from an agent.
"I cannot complain in terms of what took place. Am I disappointed? Of course we are. Do we wish him well? Of course we do, but we need to move on."
Bale's transfer would have been the icing on the cake, but Bluebirds manager Steve Morison has busily put together a much more fit for purpose squad anyway for the Championship season.
Morison's men begin their campaign with a home clash against Norwich this weekend.
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