The denial of reality is the motto that Florentino Pérez has installed at Real Madrid. He never loses, neither on the field nor off it. That was the subject of his impulsive press conference, strange for an extremely calculating man. He is so by training (civil engineer) and by devotion.
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In his youth, he trained in the political intricacies of the Madrid City Council before jumping to national politics in Adolfo Suárez’s government, holding second or third-tier media positions, but of great strategic relevance. From there, he jumped to the Reformist Party, sponsored by his great friend Miquel Roca i Junyent. It ended in a memorable failure in 1983.
His intervention produced a newsworthy event: it revealed the true nature of Florentino
At 36, Florentino Pérez knew inside out the most hidden guts of politics and the opportunities that knowledge would generate for him. That same year he participated in the purchase of Construcciones Padrós, based in Badalona, at the price of one peseta per share. The rest is history.
At the intersection of his ambitions was Real Madrid, of which he has been a fan since childhood. He was a child fascinated by the successes of the Madrid of Di Stéfano, Puskas, and Gento, a model of stars that Florentino maintains 70 years later against all odds. The other object of fascination was Santiago Bernabéu, a benchmark against which he measures himself with an obsessive zeal. He keeps knocking it down.
Florentino never considered Madrid more than a club, but he was convinced, and still is, that it is the true brand of Spain, regardless of the scarce participation of Spanish players in the project. The same happened in the era of Santamaría, Kopa, Rial, Di Stéfano, and Puskas, where the naturalization of footballers worked miracles.
For Florentino Pérez, there was no better position than the presidency of Real Madrid in the attempt to reach the dreams of the fan and propel the ambitions of the businessman. A perfect marriage, united by the political skills of a calculator who prefers to move behind the scenes rather than play in the open field.
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There are some little-known aspects of Florentino, president of Real Madrid in two terms: one of six years and another of seventeen. In between, a resignation and the presidency of Ramón Calderón. He returned from that three-year period with as much urgency as desperation. He felt that Guardiola’s Barça was diminishing Madrid on the playing field and on the great international stage. He could not admit it. His response was thunderous: Cristiano, Kaká, Benzema, Ozil, Di María, Xabi Alonso, Khedira… His counteroffensive involved hiring Mourinho and using him as the antichrist of Guardiola.
Florentino is back to that, renewing his nostalgia for the only coach he respects. It is a return that corresponds with the stale impression the Madrid president conveyed in a press conference that stood out for its crass character, in the style of Gil, Lopera, and company. The same incoherence, misogyny, emptiness, and disdain for journalism.
Only propagandists suit him, who are short on arguments at these moments of team failure and overflow of a club confronted with everyone: the neighborhood residents – the consequences of the clash affect the economic use of the Bernabéu -, the League, the referees, and UEFA, to whose arms he has returned without any sympathy after the collapse of the Super League, the idea that would definitively serve to surpass Santiago Bernabéu’s benchmark.
It is a reality that Florentino does not tolerate. It is a club that denies defeat. That of the team with its radioactive campaign against referees through Real Madrid TV. Madrid does not lose, they steal from it. There is always an excuse to clear the ball out. Florentino Pérez, a strong man with very thin skin, did not accept a single one and got entangled in an insubstantial speech, sustained by the refusal to assume the slightest responsibility in the club’s and team’s latest drift. That said, the hour of intervention produced a newsworthy event: it revealed the true nature of the Real Madrid president.
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