In the annual speeches of the president of Real Madrid at the members' assembly, the part in which Florentino Pérez points to the future direction has been gaining importance. Yesterday's drawing drew an institution that is approaching one of the most decisive turning points in its history. He announced that he will submit to a referendum a new club model designed to protect his “economic assets”, which amounted to 10,000 million euros, and reinforced his intention to launch the Super League soon: “This system does not work and the moment is critical. “The time has come to act.”
Between the 2023 assembly and yesterday, something decisive occurred: on December 21, the CJEU issued a ruling that set limits on the power that UEFA and FIFA had to prevent a competition like the one promoted by the president of Madrid. “It put a resounding and forever end to decades of monopoly,” Pérez said. “We can proudly say that in the same way that Santiago Bernabéu's vision promoted the creation of the European Cup, overcoming opposition, as now, from FIFA and UEFA, Real Madrid has once again honored its history. We can feel very proud, but we have not fought this battle just to celebrate a sentence. Now it's time to put it into practice,” he continued. “And the sooner we do it, the better.”
Pérez returned to his arguments. He considers a format with more matches of interest necessary to generate more income, and in an environment in which clubs have more control of the competitions and their calendars, to which he attributed the increase in injuries.
In addition to the changes in formats and governance, the president of Madrid believes that a transformation in the model in which content is distributed is essential. “Fans suffer from the unacceptable cost that must be assumed to watch football,” he said. “Piracy is at unprecedented levels and the strategy of the managers – in this case of LaLiga – consists of suing consumers who do not have the financial means to watch football. This strategy does not work, and this was demonstrated in the film and music industries.” That is why he believes that the way is the Unify platform planned in the Super League project and which promises to broadcast all the matches for free over the internet.
To advance along this route, he considers the company of Barcelona to be important, with whom he tried to reduce the tension despite the requests of a partner during question time. “I'm not going to get angry with Barça. Barça and Madrid have to help each other,” he said. They remain together in the Super League project and it also seems that they are traveling parallel paths towards a future change in the club model, as Pérez hinted on a couple of occasions when mentioning his plans for Madrid: “Barcelona is also involved in that and Athletic will also be there.”
The president of Madrid outlined these great transformations that he believes are imminent in an assembly that approved the first accounts in history in which a club obtained more than 1,000 million euros in income. They were 1,073 million and this season's budgets contemplate 1,127.9.
These forecasts do not include income from concerts, paralyzed by the neighbors' legal battle. “If concerts can be held, we will do them,” he said, and assured that they would have a minimal impact on the accounts, “around 1% of the budget.” They have also not budgeted income for the new Club World Cup, due to not knowing the data.
In the Ballon d'Or controversy, whose club did not attend the gala, he also pointed out UEFA, which “co-organized” it for the first time. “It had to go to a Real Madrid player,” he said, mentioning Vinicius, Carvajal and Bellingham as the main recipients. “Rodri deserved a Ballon d'Or, but not this year.”
