In what is now , Florentino Pérez invoked on Tuesday an alleged opponent with a “Mexican accent” who maneuvered in the shadows. He challenged him: “Those who want to present themselves should know that we are waiting for them. It is their opportunity, but they should not talk behind you, show your face and say who you are.” And yesterday afternoon, the 37-year-old businessman from Alicante sent him a letter in which he asked him to try to establish an electoral process with longer deadlines. “I will decide in the next few days if we take the gauntlet, to see if there is time to put something together,” he said later in Mexico, with a certain local accent. The campaign had begun.
Pérez found out about the letter shortly before an interview in La Sexta, where he showed distance from who he is emerging as his rival: “I don’t know him.” And even more distance from his request: “When they called the elections in 2000, I didn’t ask for more time. I ran and won,” he settled.
Riquelme asked him to “dialogue together in the coming days and agree on a broader process that allows and encourages the real participation of members and Real Madrid fans in their future.” It also calls for “a more transparent and innovative process with the eternal gaps that surround, for example, voting by mail or the willingness to meet and contact members with the right to vote.” Remote participation has been a recurring source of dispute in previous votes.
However, Riquelme’s request seems to have a complex fit in the part of the club’s statutes that regulates electoral processes. The text does not leave much room. Article 39 establishes that “within two days following the occurrence of the event that motivates the need to hold elections for the President and Board of Directors, the Electoral Board will agree to the start of the electoral process by opening a period of ten calendar days, counting from its publication, in order for the candidacies to be presented.” On Tuesday afternoon, Pérez asked his board of directors to start the process, which means that the ten days to present candidacies will start counting this afternoon at the latest. Applications are examined and validated in a maximum of one day. Then, according to article 41, “the Electoral Board, within the next business day from the date of proclamation of the last of the Candidacies presented, will set the day for holding the appropriate votes within the period of the following fifteen days.” From today, there would be a maximum of 27 days left for the polls to open from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., although Riquelme wants more. “Let’s avoid taking Real Madrid fans into a time of rupture, polarization and internal tension,” he writes.
While the text was circulating in the newsrooms, the president of Madrid insisted on television in his efforts against the group of journalists that he has labeled as “the bad guys”: “We must point them out. Those who are repeatedly enemies of Real Madrid must be pointed out.” He insisted in his thesis that there is an “orchestrated campaign” against the club and against himself. “What was seen yesterday [por la rueda de prensa del martes] It was a Florentino fed up with that destabilization. Do I look sick? They have wanted me to resign and not show up. And the only thing that happened is that I resigned and ran. With the same enthusiasm as in the year 2000, 26 years ago.”
Yesterday he did go into details of the club’s management, starting with the return of concerts to the stadium, which he predicted “very soon”, after the resolution of the Provincial Court of Madrid that exonerated the club of responsibility for the noise.
He even spoke about Mourinho: “He has been with us. He increased our competitiveness and from then on we won six European Cups in ten years.” Also about his interpretation of this year’s void: “The origin of everything is in the Club World Cup. We didn’t do preseason and that led us to 28 injuries.” And about his star: “Mbappé is the best player Madrid has at the moment. He has scored many goals. His mission is only to score many goals.” And about Vinicius’ renewal: “How is there going to be a rush? There is all of next season left.” Even about the next market: “Of course there will be signings. There have always been signings. We have always signed the best.” The campaign that hasn’t been there for decades has begun.
