I interviewed Nelson Mandela in May 1994, a few days after his inauguration as the first democratic president of South Africa. He gave me some news. That he would serve one term and, at 80 years old, retire from politics. And so it was. He did not fall into the temptation of eternalizing himself in power.
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I remembered that a few days ago when Florentino Pérez announced that, less than a year before turning 80, he was once again running as a candidate for the presidency of Real Madrid. Not as honorary president, not as a shrewd advisor to a younger leader, but with full executive powers. In other words, to continue being what he has been, except for a brief interregnum, since 2000: the Louis XIV of Madrid. Le club c’est moi.
The truth is, judging by what happened the other day, he has little shrewdness left. Unlike the President of the United States, who is nine months older, Pérez once had it. It was reflected in the glorious years Madrid has lived this century and in the success of the multinational construction company he presides over. But today he is the reflection of the chaos into which he has plunged his team. Perhaps, even, the cause.
He wants to stay in power without assuming the responsibilities that power entails. That Madrid has not won a trophy in two years, that they play nothing, that the players not only lack motivation but also fight among themselves, that a good coach with independent judgment was fired and replaced by someone whose only virtue is blind loyalty to the president – like, for example, Trump’s Secretary of Defense – has nothing to do with his management. No. As Pérez explained at the press conference, it is all the referees’ fault and, above all, the journalists’.
Florentino Pérez today is the reflection of the chaos into which his team has plunged; perhaps, even, the cause
In my experience, when a leader gets into the habit of killing the messengers, it is a sign that the weight of his office overwhelms him. Both in football and in politics, those who complain about the media are like ship captains who complain about the waves of the sea. You can try to control nature. Trump does it with his lawsuits against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Pérez has done it, persuading the weakest newspaper editors to forbid rigorous journalists from writing about his Madrid.
But if the ship is leaking, there is nothing to be done. Journalists, most of whom (believe me) take their work seriously, must answer first to the public, not to power. Sooner or later the truth will come out. It was striking that, according to Pérez, the problem was not so much that last week two of his players exchanged blows in the locker room but that someone leaked it and a newspaper published it. Sorry, Florentino, but unfortunately for you we live in a democracy, not Putin’s Russia.
I don’t want to be accused of ageism. I don’t mean to say that as a universal rule people over 80 should stop holding leadership positions. It depends on the energy they have left and their ability to see the world as it is and themselves as they are. I am not the only one who believes it would have been better for South Africa if Mandela had stayed president for five more years.
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In football or politics, complaining about the media is like ship captains complaining about the waves
Let’s return to the topic of shrewdness or, to choose a better word, the judgment a person possesses, the most important thing in a leader. Or in anyone. I have met many gifted people who have the judgment of a mosquito, including academics or writers who, when analyzing the world outside their specialty, say nothing but nonsense. But they still believe they are not because they assume that being brilliant in one field automatically makes them brilliant in all. And I’m not just talking about intellectuals. Diego Maradona was like that. Because he was a genius as a footballer, he thought that, on any topic (international politics, for example), his word was the word of God.
Having good judgment starts with knowing yourself. Not being blind to your shortcomings or the limits of your possibilities. And being able to see yourself with a certain sense of humor, to understand that, after all, you are just another microbe in the cosmos and, in the end, the great joke of life, you will also die.
They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don’t understand the phrase so much as a promise that you will steal money but that you will lose perspective. That your mental faculties become corrupted, which is what has happened to the absolute monarch Florentino Pérez. As another French king, Louis XV, said, you convince yourself that après moi, le deluge. After me, the flood. The world – or, in this case, Real Madrid – cannot live without you.
You come to believe that you cling to power not out of vanity but for the common good. It’s not egocentrism, it’s altruism. And on the basis of that fundamental error you make one wrong decision after another, whether on a large scale, like insisting on staying where you no longer belong, or in detail, for example, treating your star players as adults instead of spoiled children or, the catastrophe for Real Madrid that is looming, choosing as the new coach someone who also lacks the judgment to understand that, as my mother used to say, “you’re no longer up to this.” I mean, of course, José Mourinho, who had his day, but hasn’t won anything in ten years.
I want to think – I need to think – that what they say about wisdom coming with age is true. At least in normal people, not so much in those who have reached the top and have been inflated with power. I was talking not long ago with a 97-year-old man. That idea that old people should rest and be content with a serene life did not convince him. He told me what seemed to me a great truth, that you always have to “have projects.” “Since I no longer have them – he added – what I want now is to die.”
The question is what projects to take on. Knowing which are within your capabilities and which are not. For example, past a certain age, being a commercial airline pilot or captain of an aircraft carrier like Real Madrid, better not. But there are many equally dignified options that will keep you busy and entertained until the end. Like reading, or gardening, or collecting stamps, or – as long as someone warns you when you start to go senile – dedicating yourself to writing a weekly column.
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