1. Real Madrid has had a blank season in football. And in basketball. And in women's football. One hundred percent failures. Not a single title for the club with the best record in history. Faced with Flick's Barça's successes, a large smokescreen was needed, and Florentino Pérez invented express elections so that Madridism would have a democratic appearance. He has won them overwhelmingly. No surprise. Now he will be able to do what he wanted: sell 5% –or 10%– of the club's ownership to generate close to the billion euros that Madrid urgently needs. The cost overrun of the works on the Bernabéu stadium – the mess has not only been architectural – forces them to generate income from wherever, even if it means that the members will no longer be the owners of the entire club.
2. In that press conference – the first in eleven years– where we realized that the president of Madrid was playing dumb, Florentino challenged the opposition to come forward to debate club models. Enrique Riquelme took up the gauntlet, but then there was no debate. Not a single face-to-face. No journalistic fairness. The newcomer has been criticized for everything and has been squeezed in interviews. The president, red carpet, propaganda massages, and an absence of criticism that, being so evident, is embarrassing. The aspirant Riquelme has not even had access to the electoral roll. And nothing happens. Postal voting has been another play without equal opportunities. And here peace and then glory. Florentino is stumbling, but power is not. And, in Madrid kilometer zero, it is implacable.
3. Enrique Riquelme has already built an empire at thirty-seven, but now he has realized how power operates. Real power. He, who dominates the electric energy in Latin America, he who can organize an electoral campaign in a week, he who can present a personal guarantee of 187 million euros, he who had the support of Raúl, Hierro and Del Bosque, has seen how power slams the door in your face. Just one example. Accustomed as he is to doing business with the most important banks, and for amounts we don't even know how to write, he has seen how Spanish banking turned off the tap for him to help him with the guarantee for the presidency of Madrid. A single phone call was enough for them to turn their backs on him. After all, he managed to present the guarantee thanks to a bank from Andorra and one from Canada. In Spain, they haven't even given him a glass of water. Nothing new. Florentino Pérez, at 37 years old, when he was the right-hand man of Miquel Roca i Junyent as general secretary of the Democratic Reformist Party, already had financial power in his hands. In that 1984 campaign, the media agency demanded that Florentino pay in advance for the advertisement pages each day. The day they didn't pay, the full-page advertisements were not published. The next day, March and Botín called the media agency: they didn't need to wait for payment confirmation; the two banks would vouch for him.
4. In this electoral campaign – if it can be called that – more has been said about ACS and Cox than about women's football – which hasn't even been mentioned – or about La Fábrica, which is their Masia but a shoddy version. Of course, football and signings. Not even Riquelme's promise to sign Haaland and Rodrigo has served him much. Real's members have voted for Florentino with their eyes closed, even if he was the preferred candidate of 75% of Barcelona members. Yesterday, in Madrid, there were only two proper nouns. Two who wear white. The Pope and the "superior being", as Butragueño nicknamed him. Leo XIV is just passing through, Florentino will stay for four more years. Or eight. Or until his health gives out. Or until Mourinho drags him down with him, sooner rather than later. That, indeed, is the dream shared by Barcelona members.
