Florentino P\u00e9rez will continue as president of Real Madrid after winning their first elections in 20 years, paving the way for his plans to sell 5% of the club. P\u00e9rez, who has been president for 23 years across two spells \u2013 first between 2000 and 2006 and then since 2009, winning the last five elections unopposed \u2013 polled 65%. The 37-year-old challenger, Enrique Riquelme, lost with 35% after a total of 33,555 members exercised their right to vote. The results were held up after Riquelme challenged the validity of around 1,000 postal votes, of which over 400 were eventually struck off.<\/p>\n
The victory means that Jos\u00e9 Mourinho should be formally announced as manager on Monday, with Madrid paying Benfica a \u20ac15m (\u00a313m) release fee for the Portuguese coach. P\u00e9rez had also promised to make a bid of \u201cat least \u20ac150m\u201d on Tuesday for an unnamed \u201cgalactico\u201d understood to be Michael Olise. Riquelme said he would appoint Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez Blanco as his sporting director and he would attempt to convince J\u00fcrgen Klopp to come as coach. He also said he was confident of signing Erling Haaland and Rodri.<\/p>\n
Although the victory gives P\u00e9rez the mandate stay in power for five more years and push through his plans to change the club\u2019s structure, taking the proposal to a members\u2019 assembly, the margin of victory is smaller than had been anticipated. P\u00e9rez, under whose presidency Madrid have won seven European Cups and become the richest club in the world, had not been expected to face any opposition at all. Even when a challenger appeared, there was no doubt that he would win, and in all probability by a landslide. Ultimately, though, P\u00e9rez has successfully seen off his opponent and reinforced his position.<\/p>\n
For Riquelme, it represents something of a success, if an ultimately empty one, at least in the short term. Having not foreseen P\u00e9rez\u2019s decision to call snap elections, he was forced to put together a candidacy from scratch and a position of anonymity, meaning even standing could be seen as an achievement. Riquelme had contemplated standing in 2021 only to decide against it and these elections were widely seen as a first step towards making a future bid for power. But whether he will try again or get the opportunity to remains to be seen: he had campaigned against what he described as P\u00e9rez\u2019s \u201cprivatisation\u201d of the club and the risk that these would be Madrid\u2019s last ever elections.After two years without a trophy, the president called these elections during an extraordinary, rambling press conference on 14 May. Just one year into his latest term, he had done so, it appeared, to flush out, expose and defeat an emerging and unprepared opposition \u2013 and perhaps without even having to face them.<\/p>\n
The announcement surprised everyone, and there was little real sense of there being any threat to P\u00e9rez\u2019s power. At that point few had even heard of Riquelme, an energy millionaire from Alicante who has business interests in Mexico. P\u00e9rez, who had not named him in the press conference but referred to a man who \u201cspeaks with a South American accent\u201d, gave Riquelme a notoriety he did not have.<\/p>\n
P\u00e9rez also gave Riquelme just 10 days to build a candidacy and comply with the strict regulations that control who stands \u2013 rules that P\u00e9rez had tightened as president. Riquelme wrote to P\u00e9rez requesting more time but was not given it. He also had to present a bank guarantee for \u20ac178m which had to be secured against his own personal wealth. An impossible task looked even more difficult when two Spanish banks refused, but Riquelme did eventually stand. He demanded three public debates but there were none.<\/p>\n
The 14-day campaign, which no one had experienced in two decades in Madrid and which became quite a spectacle, largely revolved around P\u00e9rez\u2019s plans to change the model of the club that has been in place since its foundation in 1902 and the reasons for it. P\u00e9rez said he wanted to protect fan ownership by giving membership a financial value and said he was \u201conly\u201d inviting investment as a way of measuring the value of the club.<\/p>\n