“Real Madrid wishes to state that these rumours are categorically false and are due to certain interests that have nothing to do with reality.”
This was the wording of a Real Madrid statement back in August, issued “in response to a rumour… claiming that president Florentino Perez is allegedly considering stepping down as president of the club”.
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That it was issued at all was a surprise given most of the Madrid fanbase, and those who work in or with the club, had been unaware of rumblings about any resignation and would not have given much credence to the idea anyway.
Perez is 76 and has experienced some significant health problems in recent years. There were concerns when he missed a La Liga game against Osasuna in early October after testing positive for Covid-19. But none of this has led to any doubts about his commitment, dedication or ability to be Madrid president, nor to any serious idea that he might decide to soon step aside.
Before this weekend’s Clasico at Barcelona (Perez’s 62nd as president), The Athletic spoke to more than a dozen sources who work for, or who are closely connected with, Madrid. All of them requested anonymity, feeling that discussing Perez’s leadership openly could have serious consequences for their careers — a further reflection of his power.
Both supporters and questioners of Perez as the club’s undisputed leader admitted it is likely Madrid will have a new president in 10 years. However, actually visualising what that would look like, who the new president might be and how the club’s structure and decision-making would evolve was hard for many.
“Thinking of Madrid after Florentino is like science fiction,” said one industry source who deals regularly with the club. “It is all speculation, nobody really knows. It is very difficult to imagine Real Madrid without Florentino Perez in charge.”
This is why.
Perez was first elected as Madrid president in 2000 when his audacious gambit of promising to sign Barcelona’s biggest star Luis Figo convinced ‘socios’ (club members) to vote in his favour.
The construction magnate — since 1997, he has led Grupo ACS, Spain’s largest civil engineering company that reported revenue of €33.6billion (£29.2bn; $35.7bn) and profits of €668m last year — immediately embraced the club’s ‘presidential model’. He directed the signing of further galacticos in Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario and David Beckham while revolutionising the club’s finances by selling its old training ground and expanding its global merchandising reach.
The Madrid board during Perez’s first presidency included some strong voices capable of dissent — including Ramon Calderon, who became president himself in 2006 after Perez surprisingly stepped down, claiming he believed the club needed “a change of direction”.
Since returning to the presidency in 2009, Perez has centralised his power at the club. Nobody else on the board has the charisma or force of personality of the main boss. No directors seriously question his decisions or policies, either in public or private.
“It’s absolute power. There is nobody on the Madrid board who will tell him: ‘You’re making a mistake’,” says an industry source. Another former Madrid executive says: “When he walks into a room, 20 people jump up and start fluffing the chair, getting him water, just catching his farts.”
Perez’s leadership model often sees director general Jose Angel Sanchez acting on his behalf to carry out his wishes. “Florentino decides, Jose Angel executes,” is the characterisation widely shared by those who work for the club and those who deal with it regularly.
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Such a leadership model has a serious impact on how decisions are made across different departments, from player transfers to pitch maintenance to marketing.
Decisions that, at other top clubs, are made by senior executives need sign-off from the very top at Madrid. In practice, this means they are put to Sanchez, who then brings them to Perez, if required. Staff learn to tailor proposals to what is more likely to be accepted. It can be frustrating, especially when a quick decision is required — whether in transfer dealings or with a potential new business partner.
An obsessive football fan, Perez has been going to the Bernabeu since he was a child in the 1950s during the club’s first golden era under Santiago Bernabeu’s presidency. While he has listened over time to different advisors — long-serving former Madrid technical secretary Ramon Martinez, football agents Jorge Mendes and Ernesto Bronzetti, and, most recently, Madrid’s chief scout Juni Calafat — he still believes he knows better than anyone which players Madrid should sign. “Florentino is president and sporting director, always has been,” says a source with direct knowledge of the club’s transfer workings.
Unlike other big clubs such as Barcelona or Bayern Munich, the football experience of former players and coaches is not relied upon — legends such as Vicente del Bosque, Fernando Hierro and Jorge Valdano have all been sidelined. Oaths of loyalty to the president are required for long-term stays at the club, such as former striker and current director of institutional relations Emilio Butragueno’s often-recalled 2005 description of his boss as a “supreme being”.
This makes the role of Real Madrid coach a precarious position. Perez never really believed in either Julen Lopetegui or Rafa Benitez and neither lasted long. Zidane’s charisma and self-confidence were useful, but it was winning multiple Champions Leagues that kept him in the job. Carlo Ancelotti has tremendous diplomacy skills, but even winning La Liga this season might not earn the head coach a new contract.
Communication is the other area that Perez — a political animal who ran unsuccessfully for public office in the 1980s — believes is vitally important. A clear Madridista perspective is channelled through Real Madrid TV, friendly online publications and well-connected reporters throughout the Spanish sports and general media.
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Such media influence is useful in the continual political battles with La Liga president Javier Tebas, the only other figure in Spanish football who comes close to Perez’s influence. However, the ability to control narratives domestically can lead to important blindspots — most obviously when failing to foresee the international outrage provoked by the European Super League fiasco of April 2021.
Two years on, Perez and his fellow backers continue to maintain that the Super League project remains alive — with the European Court of Justice to deliver its final verdict on the validity of the project in December. And at Madrid, his power remains completely unchallenged, even by those who do not agree with his policies or his politics.
Historically, elections to be Madrid president featured multiple candidates competing for the post. After Perez resigned in 2006, Calderon narrowly won a closely contested election between five candidates. When Perez decided to return three years later, he was unchallenged. He has since been reelected unopposed in 2013, 2017 and 2021.
Changes made to the club statutes in 2012 have contributed to this. Candidates now need to have been club members for 20 years, a 33 per cent increase on the previous rule of 15 years. They must also advance a bank guarantee worth 15 per cent of the club’s annual budget. Only Spanish citizens can run, too.
Perez defended these measures as being required to protect the club from outsiders who might not have Madrid’s best interests at heart. “Nobody should be able to sweet talk their way into control,” he said in 2012. “And I do not want to think bad of anyone, not of Arab sheikhs or Russians, but this is our own thing.”
There has been little dissent at annual assemblies, where socio representatives (‘compromisarios’) chosen in an opaque process rubber-stamp the board’s plans. Some socios have challenged the statutes in local courts, but judges have always rejected their complaints. In 2018, 92 per cent of compromisarios approved a €575million loan for the Bernabeu redevelopment project. In 2021, when asked to accept a further €225m loan to cover cost overruns, they voted 1,562 in favour, 16 against.
Given Madrid’s annual budget continues to increase (for 2022-23, it was €769.6million), the deposit required to be a candidate for election is now well over €100m and is sure to climb further. Under Spanish law, the entire club board can take on this guarantee — Barcelona president Joan Laporta relies on help from wealthier directors — but Madrid’s own rules say the entire amount must be underwritten by the president alone.
Many around the Bernabeu argue that the team’s remarkable run of five Champions League wins over the past decade demonstrates the merits of having such a strong leader in charge. The turmoil at Barcelona in recent years — more presidents, fewer trophies, larger debts — shows the risks of too much democracy, in their view.
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“If you allow anybody to be president, without responsibility, you end up like Barca,” says someone close to Perez. “The fans get carried away, make short-term decisions and put the future of the club at risk.”
Madrid’s next elections are scheduled for 2025. Everyone The Athletic spoke to took it for granted that, barring serious health problems, Perez would contest that election and probably not face any challenge.
Still, even those close to him admit that “nobody is eternal”. In his day job — running Spanish civil engineering giant ACS — ‘delfines’ (potential successors) have come and gone over the past decade. At Madrid, there has never been a move to prepare a succession plan. “Do you believe Florentino believes himself mortal?” asks a close observer. “The plans are only made by him.”
While former players Butragueno and Iker Casillas are within the club’s current structures (the latter is deputy to the chief executive of the Real Madrid Foundation), director general Sanchez is seen as the internal figure most capable of taking on the enormous task. But the bank guarantee would be an issue for all of them, as it would likely be for almost anyone.
Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal said in September that he would like to be Real Madrid president someday, while making clear that he believed the club had the best leader possible. Mediaset chairman Borja Prado could be rich enough, but the supremely well-connected businessman would not conceivably challenge his close associate Perez.
Following Perez appears to everyone an almost impossible task. Being Madrid president has become a job only one person can do. A future decline seems inevitable — perhaps like Manchester United after Sir Alex Ferguson, or AC Milan after Silvio Berlusconi.
“When Florentino leaves, the club will be orphaned, nobody will know what to do,” says a source who currently has a close relationship with Madrid but expects that to be over long before that time comes.
After his recent positive test for Covid-19, Perez was quickly back to work, attending games and other events. It was the same story after back operations in Chicago in February 2016 and October 2017, and after a lung operation in Madrid in October 2022, which was scheduled for a few days after he accompanied winner Karim Benzema at that year’s Ballon d’Or ceremony.
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Various sources said that “Florentino’s life is Real Madrid”, that he is a “workaholic” and “the club is what keeps him going”, especially since the death of his wife, Pitina, in March 2012. Although some who work at the club say he is maybe not quite as visible as in the past, everyone consulted for this article was sure he remains right on top of all the most important details. He is regularly at Madrid’s Valdebebas training facility, having coffee with Ancelotti and Sanchez to discuss the latest developments on and off the pitch.
Last summer, that included making all the key transfer spending decisions, such as ensuring Madrid got Jude Bellingham ahead of Manchester City or Liverpool, and not moving for Harry Kane to keep open a future bid for Kylian Mbappe. He remains fully committed to the Super League idea and decided Madrid should formally enter the ‘Caso Negreira’ investigation into Barcelona’s payments to the former referees’ chief as a ‘damaged party’.
There is also the completion of the €1billion Bernabeu renovation project, the culmination of a plan Perez first proposed in the early 2000s. Increased revenue from the super modern new stadium is vital for the club’s financial future. The stunning building is seen by some as his “pyramid”, his legacy, putting him on the same pedestal as his predecessor, Bernabeu. Others wonder whether the financial drain has affected the team’s general level — this is the first season in decades that the club’s No 9 jersey is unfilled.
All longer-term concerns are put aside in Clasico week when the only thing that matters is beating Barcelona. Perez boycotted last April’s game at the Camp Nou amid increased tensions over the Caso Negreira, and it is yet to be seen if he will be sitting next to Barca’s Laporta at their temporary Montjuic home on Saturday.
Whatever the future brings, for the moment it is unthinkable for anybody else to be in the position to represent the Bernabeu club on such occasions. Nobody is thinking too much about succession planning or future-proofing. Florentino Perez is Real Madrid and ever shall be.
GO DEEPER
El Clasico: Real Madrid and Barcelona's week of tension won't change their alliance
(Top photo: Gaspafotos/MB Media/Getty Images)
