Florentino Perez is the one to blame for Madrid failures
The president's bad management has left Los Blancos with nothing to play for
Florentino Perez is not untouchable. Madrid fans and football in general believe the crisis at the club goes far beyond the players and the coach. Instead it is the president, who had to listen to chants for him to resign at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night.
It has been a nightmare week for Perez, who is paying for terrible sporting planning. In other clubs the sporting director would take the blame but at Real Madrid there is none. It is just Perez.
There should have been a big party after Madrid won their third Champions League running but Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo left, pouring water all over it.
The president could not do anything about them leaving but could have invested the 112 million Ronaldo’s sale earned and he did not appreciate the consequences of losing a player who bags 50 goals a season.
Perez could not sign any of his key candidates to replace Zidane either. Pochettino, Conte, nope, and in the end he stole Lopetegui from Spain, causing a furore and starting him off on the wrong foot. Given Madrid’s fans love the Spanish national team, nobody was particularly happy.
Many can’t forgive Perez for not moving seriously to sign Kylian Mbappe to replace Ronaldo, however hard it would have been, and he also didn’t sign Eden Hazard.
The winter market didn’t change the situation and Mariano Diaz isn’t even making it into the squad.
Fans can’t understand Perez’s change in attitude form always wanting to sign the best to what he is doing now.
They believe he is focusing all his resources on the Bernabeu renovation which is the big legacy he wants to leave, and forgetting the sporting aspect of the team.
After sacking Lopetegui he could have got an experienced coach but opted for Santiago Solari who hasn’t got close to becoming the new Zidane.
With worse numbers than Julen, he’s divided the dressing room with controversial decisions and overseen a nightmare week of three home defeats.
Fans want answers from Florentino, they want a plan for the future, regeneration, but there is no answer.
However Florentino cannot be replaced. To be president you need to have 20 years of history as a Madrid member and have 15 per cent of Madrid’s budget. Hard barriers to overcome since the club’s new statutes were approved in 2012. Since Perez returned in 2009, he hasn’t even had to battle another candidate and all the electoral processes have ended without the need for a final vote.
The president is enduring one of his worst moments in charge of Madrid, the club he took over in 2000 to resign six years later.
Are there similarities to that situation? In February 2006 he said the “Real Madrid need a change and this is the right moment to leave the presidency. I’m convinced that it could be the big change the club needs.”
It was the Madrid of the Galacticos, Figo, Zidane, Beckham, and the detonator was the Copa del Rey elimination by Zaragoza, a defeat by Mallorca that took La Liga away from them, and losing against Arsenal in the Champions League last 16. All in 12 days, similar to now. Florentino took responsibility then. Will he do so now?
