For the first time in 20 years, Florentino Pérez's Real Madrid reign will be challenged at the ballot box.
The world’s most valuable and most successful football club will hold elections on Sunday.
Pérez, the 79-year-old executive who for the past two-and-a-half-decades has made Madrid the global powerhouse to beat, will face an upstart rival half his age who is making big promises to convince the club's 98,000 members to consider a change.
Enrique Riquelme, 37, was still a boy when Pérez first took over. He remained unknown to most Madrid fans until he stepped forward as a rival candidate after the incumbent called early elections last month in a press conference dominated by Pérez's claims the Spanish media is trying to "kill" his presidency.
"Why do they want to kill me?" an agitated Pérez told reporters on May 12. "Why? Because there are some kids out there saying they want to run? Well, let them. I would love them to."
Riquelme, a renewable energy executive, has surprisingly been able to mount a credible threat. That's thanks to the backing of former Madrid players like Raúl González and promising huge, and arguably far-fetched, signings like that of Manchester City star Erling Haaland.
Riquelme has the names, but does he have the clout? Riquelme got a big boost when Madrid great Raúl, its record holder for games played, former goalkeeper Iker Casillas and ex-defender Fernando Hierro joined his campaign.
Raúl would be Riquelme’s sports director, a role that doesn’t exist now, while Hierro would oversee its youth academy. Casillas’s exact role was not defined.
Riquelme also said he wanted to sign Spain midfielder Rodri, who has one year left on his contract with City.
But Riquelme’s big lure dangled to voters this week, his claim that "Haaland wants to come to Madrid," prompted City to dismiss any chance of negotiating for the sale of its top-scoring striker who is under contract until 2034.
That didn’t stop Riquelme going on Spain’s state broadcaster TVE and doubling down on his pledge.
"If I am made president of Real Madrid on Sunday, Haaland will play for Real Madrid," he said on Thursday.
Then it was the turn of Haaland's entourage to shoot it down.
"All very entertaining but not true. We wish all the best for both candidates in the Madrid elections," Haaland’s agent, Rafaela Pimenta, told the AP in a short statement on Friday.
"It must be a bluff," was Pérez's opinion.
Pérez has earned status as top dog
Not to be outdone, Pérez said Thursday that next week — after the election — he would announce the "most expensive transfer in the history of Real Madrid," worth, he said, at least 150 million euros ($173 million).
He knows a thing or two about promising apparently impossible signings — and then making them come true. He won his first elections in 2000 when he swore he would sign then-Barcelona forward Luis Figo. And that he did.
Now, Pérez has promised to bring back José Mourinho, Madrid’s coach from 2010-13, and sign Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konaté, a free agent, and Inter Milan’s Denzel Dumfries, if he is given another four years.
While those names are unlikely to thrill all of Madrid’s members, Mourinho’s abrasive style left the fanbase divided, Pérez’s pledges do have the value of being completely credible.
Besides Figo, he has consistently delivered on his transfer targets, from Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham, to Cristiano Ronaldo and, most recently, after years of trying, Kylian Mbappé.
And, regardless of his plans, Pérez's wildly successful record is his best pitch.
In his two stints, from 2000-2006 and from 2009 until now, Madrid has won seven of its record 15 European Cups, along with a slew of other titles, including seven La Liga crowns and three Copa del Reys.
That all has been fueled by healthy finances as it was transformed into a global brand under Pérez, who also runs a major international construction company: Madrid has topped the Forbes Money League of the world’s most valuable football clubs for five consecutive seasons.
But Pérez also has weak spots
Pérez's Super League project meant to transform European soccer and replace UEFA’s Champions League with a club-run competition flopped in the face of backlash from some fans, many smaller clubs, and UEFA.
And so far his bet on Mbappé has not panned out. In the star’s two seasons at Madrid it has won no major titles, while Pérez has parted ways with three coaches in Carlo Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa.
Riquelme is also taking aim at the idea
Pérez floated last year to sell 10% of the club to private investors, a move that would break with 124 years of the member ownership model.
Pérez ran unchallenged when elections were to be held in 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025. His latest term was set to expire in 2029.
Riquelme has reiterated previous complaints that changes Pérez's board made to the club statutes in 2012 made it more difficult for members to present a candidacy for the presidency.
Since then, a presidential candidate has had to be a club member for 20 years and have collateral equivalent to 15% of the club budget.
"The most important thing is that after 20 years, due to a complete lack of democracy and impediments year after year so that other members of Real Madrid can run, now the moment to vote has arrived," Riquelme said.
Pérez stepped down in 2006 following a bad season but returned to power in 2009.
