Real Madrid president Florentino Perez loses the plot with astonishing press conference | OneFootball

Given this was the first time Florentino Perez, President of Real Madrid, had appeared in front of the media since 2018, it was fair to expect something historic.

The natural assumption was that Perez, now 79 and having first been elected as president in 2000, was going to resign.

His Galactico project looked as if it had come to its natural self-aborted end. A young, talented and highly rated manager had been swallowed up and chewed out by the Madrid machine. The departure of Xabi Alonso after a battle which saw Perez side with the dressing room over the coach, had allowed player power to assume full control and when the kids are put in charge, the results are predictable.

It has been an embarrassing fortnight for Madrid. While Barcelona secured La Liga with a Clásico victory, Madrid’s players have been putting each other into the hospital. Perez surely had to take the blame; instead he chose the opposite path.

“Good afternoon,” Perez began in a packed press conference at Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex. “I regret to inform you that I’m not going to resign.”

Any chance that this would be a normal press conference ended there and then.

Perez took a page out of the Donald Trump playbook. Deflect, point blame and insult. Take attention away from your failings and instead use whatever means you can to get one over your supposed rivals.

“I have made this decision because an absurd situation has been created, driven by campaigns aimed at generating a current of opinion against the interests of Real Madrid, and especially against me.

“They take advantage of the fact that we have had results that were not the best, but this is something we accept because in sports, you don’t always win. This has happened to us many times before, but they exploit these situations to attack me personally.

“They say: ‘Where is Florentino?’. Normally, I don’t speak. They say I am sick and have terminal cancer. I would like to reassure those concerned about me that every day I continue to preside over Real Madrid and my company [Perez is CEO and chairman of Grupo ACS, a civil engineering company] which, I remind you, is a world leader in infrastructure, with 170,000 employees and an annual turnover of 50 billion. My health is perfect because I couldn’t manage both roles without being in perfect health. I don’t know where this rumour came from.

“If they claim I have cancer, I would have to go to an oncology centre for treatment. Do you think that if this were true, it wouldn’t have been reported worldwide? It is not true. They made it up and decided that I am tired. I work tirelessly. I am the first to wake up and the last to go to bed.”

Perez then launched into an astonishing attack and while Trump is more than happy to criticise news companies, the Madrid boss went one further, personally calling out journalists.

“’Before the Board meeting, Florentino says, ‘I’m very tired.’ But do you really think I say this before going in? [ABC journalist] David Sánchez de Castro, are you here? So I can greet you, to see why you publish that. I get up early in the morning and I’m the last one to go to bed, I work like an animal.

“Relevo [a now closed sports website], you knew what it was, didn’t you? It set out to make a digital newspaper that lost 25 million in its lifetime and whose only purpose was to go after Real Madrid and its president.

“And I’m sorry, because my father read ABC and subscribed me many years ago, but now I have made the decision that I’m going to cancel my ABC subscription to honour my father, who will thank me for it.

“I have been watching what they are doing in the media—the Segurolas, the Relaños—who think they invented football.

“We call them ‘the intellectuals of the regime.’ We are the best team in the world, why do I have to put up with them saying Madrid is in chaos… And whoever wants to run, let them run. I have enough money to preside over the club without anything shady going on.”

“There is a conspiracy of journalists who think they run Real Madrid,” he said. “They have even said that we are broke. The stadium has cost what a stadium costs.”

Perez also found time for some misogyny, pointing to FOX’s Lola Hernández and said, “That girl, who has the right to speak. All of you are very ugly.”

Of course, there was time for Barcelona too.

“Along the way we have come across a corruption case like the Negreira case, the biggest case in history,” he said of the investigation into alleged payments from Barcelona to a referee.

“It is incomprehensible that we see referees from that time, who have been around for two decades. We are going to go to UEFA so they can stamp it out at the root, for the good of world football, over the Negreira case.

“In those wars it’s not always Madrid that suffers, other teams do too because they tell me so. Let’s see if UEFA steps in on this matter, because it will.

“It cannot be that there is suspicion of corruption paid for over 20 years. I did not come here so referees could enrich themselves with Barcelona’s money.”

Barcelona, by the way, quickly announced that their lawyers are all looking through the hour-long press conference to see if there is anything actionable.

At some point, someone in the room thought ‘any chance we could actually talk about football?’ and so asked Perez a question.

“I’m not here to talk about sporting issues.”

Oh good, was concerned for a second there.

Someone else then asked him about rumours Jose Mourinho was nearing a return which Perez did not exactly rule out: “We’re not at that procedural stage.”

He went on to say, “I’m standing to return the club’s assets to its members, because from what I see day by day, they’re being taken away from them. Some journalists want me gone, and not only am I not going anywhere, but I’m standing in the elections because I want Madrid to continue belonging to its members.”

“He’s calling them so there can be candidates. That gentleman who talks to the electricity companies and has a South American accent should stand. A Mexican accent.”

Sorry, what?

‘But Perez,’ thought the entire room. ‘Your players are in open revolt with the management. They are literally punching each other. Surely you, as the head figure, need to sort it out?’

“There was one year when I fired three coaches, it’s not the first time that’s happened.”

Oh that’s good then, we were worried for a minute there.

“And it’s not the first time two players have fought, it happens every season, because they get wound up.”

It does? Is that normal at every club in the world? Or has fighting become part of Madrid’s training schedule?

“What happened here is that someone told it for the first time, and we know who told it.

“For me the leak is worse than the fight. The next day they’re friends and go have coffee. In my 25 years of history it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

“I think it’s very wrong and I think it’s worse that they brought it to light. I’ve been here 26 years and there hasn’t been a single one in which two players, or four, haven’t fought.”

Perez left the room without stating when the elections would be or even when he would resign so that voting could take place. In fact, he did not clear anything up and instead decided to drop a bomb in the already volatile atmosphere of modern Real Madrid.