{"id":665603,"date":"2026-05-13T01:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665603\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T01:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:06:08","slug":"real-madrid-president-florentino-perez-calls-for-elections-in-bizarre-rant-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665603\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid president Florentino P\u00e9rez calls for elections in bizarre rant | Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGood afternoon, I regret to inform you that I\u2019m not going to resign.\u201d In a hot, packed press room at Valdebebas before an audience hurriedly summoned to witness a news conference so bizarre that they could barely believe what they were seeing, Florentino P\u00e9rez<\/a> sat at a desk with a phone that he kept looking at and some papers that he didn\u2019t, and announced that he was calling presidential elections at Real Madrid. What he didn\u2019t announce was a date, an electoral commission, the resignation that is required for polling to actually happen, or indeed any details at all.<\/p>\n

There was nothing about Madrid\u2019s on-field issues either, nothing about the coach, no mention of Jos\u00e9 Mourinho, no explanation for the season they have just suffered. \u201cI\u2019m not here to talk about sporting issues,\u201d P\u00e9rez said. Instead, he was there to deliver a surreal, repetitive rant that lasted over an hour, way after his own staff had tried to bring it to a close. A room of people, including the directors in the front row and lined up against one wall, looked at each other: yes, this was actually happening. P\u00e9rez went on and on, and on, the incoherent ramblings of a 79-year-old man who insisted \u201cmy health is perfect\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m enjoying this,\u201d he said but it really was time to go, time to be taken home. That\u2019s enough now. The laughs were of the uncomfortable type, more at him than with him: this was the first time he had faced the press since the day Zinedine Zidane \u201ctotally unexpectedly\u201d walked out on him. Only facing makes it sound like he was there to be interrogated; this was more facing down. Questions weren\u2019t answered, they were cues to say the same thing, an opportunity to introduce another newspaper or radio station that couldn\u2019t be trusted.<\/p>\n

That day, in 2018, he had looked sad; this time it was at turns almost funny yet really not funny at all, \u00adaccusatory and threatening, demanding that the enemies conspiring against him come out of the shadows and stand so that he can defeat them, like something straight out of the falling emperor\u2019s handbook. Enemies everywhere, paranoia too. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to shoot me, because I have the support of all Madrid\u2019s members,\u201d P\u00e9rez said. \u201cI\u2019m going to finish the bad people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever they are. Whoever they are, they weren\u2019t identified or informed what they have to do to stand, just challenged to come out and run. Which is made difficult by design. Madrid\u2019s statutes mean you need to be a Spaniard with 20 years\u2019 membership and \u20ac187m. P\u00e9rez \u201cstood\u201d alone in 2025, 2021, 2017, 2013 and 2009, democracy looking a little less than democratic. Here he seemed to reference businessman Enrique Riquelme, but wouldn\u2019t name him, instead referring to \u201cthat man talking to the big electric companies with a South American accent\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were more enemies at the gates, and within them, a hint at the court politics that go on around him. \u201cLeave the internal enemies to me,\u201d he said. As for the external ones, there are the ultras too.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Mourinho has been linked to the role at Real Madrid but Florentino P\u00e9rez did not mention the Portuguese in his press conference. Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/p>\n

And the referees of course, the unresolved (and genuinely important) Negreira case declared not to be a thing of the past, the club preparing a dossier to send to Uefa. P\u00e9rez had been robbed of seven leagues, he calculated. As for the real enemy, to blame for all that is bad: are they in the room with us right now? Yes, P\u00e9rez said. Maybe that was why there was a press conference, the worst of all called in to be shot at.<\/p>\n

The media conspires against Madrid, and against him, P\u00e9rez said, insisting radios and papers get together to work out how they can damage Madrid, how they can get their grubby hands on the club. Words went round. Horrible. Resentful. Anti-Madridista. Conspiracy. Collusion. Fake news made an appearance too. There were \u201cthose from\u00a068\u201d, \u201cregime intellectuals\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that a digital sports paper called Relevo had been set up with only one aim \u2013 to attack Madrid \u2013 and had gone out of business, \u20ac25m in debt, a moral to that story. He announced that he had always subscribed to ABC but that he was giving up his subscription \u2013 if not before he peered at the screen and read out a line from a piece in which they had said he was \u201ctired\u201d and took on Ruben Ca\u00f1izares, the ABC reporter in the room who didn\u2019t write that piece but who he accused of \u201cgoing for Madrid every day\u201d. Who also responded with a dignity the president didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

Some reporters got greeted more warmly: \u201cYou\u2019re friends \u2026 but have a word with [the critical voice] Segurola; there\u2019s one everywhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

Round and round he went. Infamy, infamy, they all had it in for him. \u201cAnd it would be bad to say I am the best president in history, but I am.\u201d There were the figures cited to prove that Madrid were the greatest, biggliest club around. As for him, everything he does is for the good of the members and for \u201cthe good of football\u201d, he said. \u201cI want kids in Africa to see football for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say: \u2018Where is Florentino?\u2019 They say I don\u2019t exist.\u201d But here he was. And it was bizarre, baffling. And, well, just bad. Bad? He\u2019s the best, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day I preside over Real Madrid<\/a> and I run a business that is a world leader, that turns over \u20ac50bn a year. \u2018I am tired,\u2019 it says here. With me we have won 66 titles in football and basketball. I have to come out and stop this. But not for me, for the members. I am the president most valued in history. I don\u2019t want to defend myself for myself, I want to defend the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cGood afternoon, I regret to inform you that I\u2019m not going to resign.\u201d In a hot, packed press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-665603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}