In the same place where Joan Laporta delivered the final blow to Barça’s elections in 2021, with his famous banner in front of the Bernabéu alongside the slogan “Looking forward to seeing you again,” Florentino Pérez launched an electoral campaign 22 years later. A message to highlight his legacy, with the names of the seven cities where the white team lifted the Champions League under his mandates, and a message for the future: “Much history to make.” The omnipresent “best president in history” won the elections in 2000 and 2004, left a year later, and returned in 2009 after a period in which Ramón Calderón led the club.
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Since then, he tightened the requirements to run (20 years as a member and a 15% guarantee of the club’s budget only with personal assets) and no one was able to overcome that barrier.
Now, expected or not, Enrique Riquelme, 37 years old and owner of the renewable energy company Cox, has accepted the challenge Florentino posed to him 12 days ago in a bizarre press conference. That businessman with a “Mexican accent” will go out to the arena to fight or be fought, with the Pope in Madrid.
On Friday, Florentino Pérez’s candidacy submitted the documentation to the electoral board and yesterday it was notified that it was approved. The president did not have to present a guarantee as stated in article 40.C.5 of Real Madrid’s Social Statutes. That requirement has been a headache for his opponent, who had to get banks to approve one for 187 million, 15% of the club’s budget for the current season. After refusals from Spanish banks like BBVA or Santander, he finally relied on Andbank España, whose headquarters are in Andorra. This afternoon, the electoral board validated all the documentation and gave the green light to Riquelme’s candidacy. The elections are a fact and the schedule remains to be detailed: June 7 is the most plausible date.
The current president experiences elections again and starts the campaign like Laporta: with a banner next to Santiago Bernabéu
The young businessman also started the electoral campaign. He already has a communications director who created a WhatsApp group with the media to communicate the steps to follow of a Riquelme who has emerged from anonymity like a hurricane. In Valdebebas, around 6 p.m., he showed up to deliver the paperwork and started his campaign: “I ask the member not to be afraid, to have the courage to listen to us.”
Riquelme’s strategy is evident in his attire. Two hours later he went to gate 65 of the Bernabéu wearing a Real Madrid shirt and a scarf. A cloud of journalists and members surrounded him. Although Florentino and Riquelme navigate similar waters (Ibex 35, top executives, politics), the owner of Cox wants to differentiate himself: Florentino is the suit and tie, Riquelme is the member, the shirt, and the scarf; these last strategies more identified with other presidents like Ramón Mendoza or Lorenzo Sanz.
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“This is not a candidacy against anyone, it is a candidacy in favor of Real Madrid, to be able to count on a project, as we said we would think until the last moment. And I can tell you that we have a tremendously exciting, serious, professional project, both in sports and socially…,” he continued.
“We want to present the candidacy once the electoral board officially names us candidates and from there we have two weeks to be able to tell everything,” he dodged, enthusiastically.
Riquelme speeds up and shows defiance: “I ask the member not to be afraid and to be brave to listen to us”
Florentino’s weapons, aside from his unquestionable legacy in infrastructure, sporting successes, and economic growth, lie in his political voracity, demonstrated in recent days with various rulings in favor of Real Madrid’s interests at a time when his figure is at stake. Riquelme, on the other hand, will force Florentino to explain in detail the corporate change he wants to undertake and to specify the sporting model.
José Mourinho, for now, will have to wait in Lisbon. He can sit on the couch with popcorn. Madrid will return to the polls if the electoral board does not say otherwise this Sunday.
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