Tottenham Hotspur's star player Gareth Bale has been linked to a possible move to Real Madrid.  LONDON â The heat of an English summer is more than meteorological. Right now, with three weeks to go before the transfer window closes at the end of August, three of the biggest stars of the Premier League are doing all they can to change their colors.  Gareth Bale wants to leave Tottenham Hotspur, now that he knows that Real Madrid would double his pay, propelling him into a completely different stratosphere.  Luis SuÃ¡rez is using the media to try to force Liverpool to sell him, to Arsenal or any other club that might offer him Champions League soccer.  And Wayne Rooney is prepared to make himself as disruptive as he can to force Manchester United to sell him to Chelsea.  All three are claiming that injuries prevent them from preparing for the new season under their current contracts. Those might be injuries of convenience while the haggling for their services goes on behind closed doors.  The new season kicks off in England on Aug. 17. Two of these men, Bale and SuÃ¡rez, were undoubtedly the outstanding talents of last season. The third, Rooney, was dropped from time to time because his form wavered, yet with his amalgam of bull-like strength and natural instinct for when to attack and when to defend, he still was a pivotal man in Manchester Unitedâs victorious season atop the Premier League.  So why are these men such malcontents? Why must they rock the boats of the teams that seemed to have been built to a large extent around them? Maybe it is the rare heat in England this summer. More likely, it involves honest cravings by Bale and SuÃ¡rez to take part in the Champions League â their current teams failed to qualify for the tournament this season.  Certainly, money is also an enticement, and not just for the players. The summers seethe in global soccer, with agents trying to make a buck (or a million) by moving their clients around.  It is, they say, a young manâs game. The rewards may not be in Alex Rodriguezâs class â $28 million this season for trying to hit a baseball out of the park â but Gareth Bale knows that if he can swing his deal to the BernabÃ©u stadium in Madrid, he can bank on Realâs paying his taxes for him, leaving him with about $12 million a year clear to take care of his girlfriend and their baby daughter.  Do not get this wrong. Bale is as genuine a lover of his game as there is in sports. ZinÃ©dine Zidane, the former GalÃ¡ctico who is advising Madridâs president, Florentino PÃ©rez on this deal, is a confirmed admirer of the speed, muscular power and unstinting team-first play that makes the Wales winger such a coveted player.  Imagine Real, with Cristiano Ronaldo on one wing and Bale on the other. And imagine the two of them alternating positions right, left and center to bamboozle defenses.  Ronaldo cost Madrid a record Â£80 million, or $123 million, to buy, and he has scored at more than a goal-a-game average ever since. Baleâs fee would top that, and despite denials, it is conceivably being negotiated in the United States, where Madrid is on tour and Tottenhamâs chairman, Daniel Levy, has a holiday home.  The denials are all part of the way that Spurs, in particular, do business. The closer a deal gets to deadline, the more that Levy and his chief shareholder, Joe Lewis, reckon they can get out of the buyer.  Tottenham, meantime, has spent nearly $80 million to buy a striker, Roberto Soldado, from Valencia in La Liga and Paulinho, a midfielder, from Corinthians in Brazil.  The Spurs rarely buy without selling, although this is a summer in which all 20 teams in the Premier League are awash in cash. Not only has NBC signed up with English soccer, but the clubs are sharing a new $8.5 billion, three-year deal for the worldwide TV rights to their games.  Those are the high stakes that the three players in question cannot fail to appreciate, and it makes this a now-or-never opportunity in their careers.  The daily bulletins out of the clubs that currently own them are just window dressing. Manchester United has tried twice, and will doubtless bid a third time, to purchase Cesc FÃ bregas, in part to put a marquee name in its midfield to soften the blow of letting Rooney go after nine seasons with the club.
Three top players in the Premier League â Luis SuÃ¡rez, Wayne Rooney and Gareth Bale â want to move on to new teams, and maybe it really is because they want bigger challenges.