Florentino, children and anesthesia
After Real Madrid drew in their Club World Cup opener against Al Hilal at noon in Miami in 30-degree heat and 70% humidity, Florentino Pérez struck his usual evangelical note, declaring: "We've finally achieved something we've been fighting for for a long time. Plus, with the game being free, all children around the world can watch Real Madrid today. It's a great joy for us, as we've fought hard to make it possible for everyone to see it."
Emphasizing the fact that it's free was also Infantino's message as he posed with Donald Trump at the White House alongside the Juventus players, who were at a loss as to what to look like while the US president asked them if they could play with a woman.
First of all, it's not free. Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi prince, is the promoter of the competition through DAZN, into which he has injected €1 billion in exchange for a 10% stake in the company. The dictator who seeks to clean up his image so we overlook the flagrant violations of fundamental human rights in his kingdom is paying for the party. To continue, we'll have to wait until the national competition begins to see what the World Cup will cost not only Madrid but all the European teams competing, with players stretched thin, exhausted, without rest, vacations, or possible preseason. They'll collapse sooner or later. The only question is when.
Florentino Pérez's epiphany doesn't come cheap either: he's targeting Ceferin's UEFA for competition from the Super League, his failed mega-project supported solely by Joan Laporta and Barça. Infantino, the master of FIFA, also wants to snatch up business and hasn't hesitated for a second to ally himself with the infamous Bin Salman and the enlightened Trump. Dictators, megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur, lords who accumulate power and wealth and can never have enough of either.
The Club World Cup sucks, but kids can finally watch Real Madrid for free, praise God, while the world's top brass play their exclusive Monopoly game with petrodollars, and the rest of us, sadly, watch, anesthetized, completely stunned, the pitiful spectacle as soon as the ball rolls. As my grandmother used to say, cheap things are expensive... and I'm not even going to tell you about free things.