REAL Madrid are the football club all the others want to be. European Champions 12 times and home to a cadre of the world’s finest players, Real’s superiority extends beyond the perimeters of the pitch.

Extracting a first-rate footballer from his current club is a tricky business – but the Spanish giants have it down pat.

Their annual play for a global superstar has become as much a part of the sporting summer as golf’s Open Championship and an England batting collapse.

President Florentino Perez got the ball rolling in the early noughties, ushering in Real’s galacticos era by implementing a policy that dictated the club must land the world’s best player every 12 months: by fair means or foul.

Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Brazilian great Ronaldo were all signed in relatively straightforward deals; vast sums of money twinned with the players’ respective desires to make the switch greasing the wheels on those transfers.

Real, then, probably thought a move for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008 would be pretty plain-sailing. Instead, they were met with an incandescent Sir Alex Ferguson insisting he "would not sell Real Madrid a virus”.

Six months later, Ronaldo was in the Bernabeu, decked out in gleaming white kit and being unveiled as the Spaniards’ world-record £80million capture.

Simply, if Real Madrid want one of your footballers, expect their tanks to come rolling onto your lawns to destructive effect.

The pernicious process often takes the form of a legendary Madrid figure being wheeled out to effuse about the talents of the club’s latest target.

Tottenham fell victim to this ploy in 2013. Current Real boss Zidane was working as an adviser to Perez when he publicly gushed about Gareth Bale.

“I’ve been watching Tottenham for the very reason Gareth Bale is playing,” said the Frenchman, before claiming Bale had only two superiors – Lionel Messi and Ronaldo – in world football.

Asked if Bale could succeed in the Spanish capital, Zidane, with all the subtlety of his 2006 World Cup final headbutt on Marco Materazzi, responded, “He is more than good enough… all talented players can go to Real Madrid.”

Bale was a Real Madrid player three months later, bought for a world-record £85m.

All this came to mind when a couple of Spurs old boys this week urged their former club to sign Joshua King.

Okay, Micky Hazard and Tim Sherwood don’t share the imperious Zidane’s clout. Nor do they work for Tottenham – but the message was unequivocal.

A UEFA Cup winner with Spurs in 1984, Hazard claimed King would be “perfect cover” for Harry Kane.

“He scores goals, he’s quick, he’s powerful, he’s strong,” said Hazard – all of which rather begs the question of why King would want to be anybody’s locum.

Sherwood, meanwhile, recently freed from his role as Swindon Town’s director of football following the Wiltshire club’s relegation to League Two, used some of the additional time he has on his hands to offer his two pennies' worth.

On Tottenham’s need for a striker, ex-Spurs boss Sherwood said: “They can’t buy one who expects to be first-choice… for me, it would be the one at Bournemouth. Josh King has loads to offer.

“He runs in behind, he holds it up, he is strong, he is still developing and he would be a perfect player for the Tottenham squad.”

King recently admitted in an interview with this newspaper that it was impossible to avoid the speculation surrounding his future.

Reading Hazard and Sherwood qualify their praise with mentions of being "cover", and perfect for Tottenham's squad might convince the Norwegian he is right to stay exactly where he is.

King was absolutely fantastic when operating as Cherries' lone striker for the final three months of last season, producing a wealth of performances very few fans or pundits realised he had in him.

Two people apparently not taken aback in the slightest by King's ability to disdainfully bully Premier League defences, week in, week out, were the player himself and boss Eddie Howe.

Dissecting his latest goalscoring deeds King would routinely explain he had simply needed to be free of injury and playing regularly in order for his talent to be set free.

Twelve goals in 14 games as Cherries' centre-forward stand up his argument.

With a fair wind behind him, imagine what the 25-year-old could achieve under Howe next season – his back end of 2016-17 strike rate would translate into a 33-goal return across a whole campaign.

Then, perhaps, King would be ready to spread his wings. Manchester United, after all, couldn't keep Ronaldo forever.

But were King to move to Tottenham – or any other elite club – right now, he would be taking an enormous and unnecessary gamble, just as his career has lift off.