Who is the businessman everyone is talking about and who wants to stand up to Florentino Pérez?

MadridEnrique Riquelme Vives (Coix, Alicante, 1989) is the man of the moment in Madrid since this Tuesday afternoon, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez implicitly mentioned him during the highly discussed press conference in which he announced early elections. At one point during the appearance, the veteran white executive spoke of a businessman with a "South American" accent, although he later clarified that he had a "Mexican" accent, who was willing to challenge him for the presidency of Real Madrid. He was referring to Riquelme.

The truth, however, is that this businessman is from a town in the Valencian Country with just over 7,000 inhabitants, although his professional career has forced him to travel on repeated occasions to Latin America, especially to Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Panama, and Colombia. Riquelme presides over the water and renewable energy company Cox –which bears this name after his hometown– with a strong presence in the region where, in fact, he took his first steps as an entrepreneur: first in Brazil, coinciding with the World Cup and the Olympic Games, and later in Panama, where he founded the photovoltaic company Grupo Sol. In 2014, back in Spain, he founded Cox, and just ten years later, he has managed to take it public. "The king of the sun." That is how Forbes magazine baptized him in 2018, when they dedicated a cover to him.

Forbes the year 2018, when they dedicated a cover to him.

"I preside over a company of Spanish origin, but with a Latin American soul," Riquelme himself summarized three months ago, during his intervention at the International Economic Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, in the case of Mexico, this April he finalized the definitive purchase of 100% of Iberdrola's subsidiary in the country for 3.7 billion dollars –perhaps that is why Florentino Pérez spoke of a "Mexican" accent.

It is not the first time that Riquelme has appeared in the speculations to take the leap to the presidency of Madrid. It already happened in 2021, when he himself announced his intention to run for election. "Now or in the future," he said then. The desire, however, came to nothing a few days later, when Pérez announced that he was advancing the club's elections –they were scheduled for June and were held expressively in April–. At that time, Riquelme himself described the calendar as "inexplicable" and "unjustified." "Running was his desire, but he withdrew his candidacy," explains a source who experienced that process closely to el ARA.

A couple to the club's board

Riquelme has been a member of the white club for more than 20 years – he has been since he was 21 – and, considering the stratospheric growth of his business, it is foreseeable that he has the capacity to present the 187 million euros as a guarantee that any candidate for the presidency of Real Madrid must have (15% of the club's budget, as stated in the statutes). He is attributed a net worth of 460 million euros, according to the annual ranking of El Mundo.

On this path, the fact that he comes from a well-off family from Alicante and has obtained multi-million euro income thanks to the real estate, construction, and agri-food business has helped. But also the fact that he has had a father – Enrique Riquelme de la Torre – who instilled in him a passion for the white club, something he boasts about on his Instagram profile. Riquelme's father was on the Real Madrid board during Ramón Calderón's tenure between 2006 and 2009 and later with Vicente Boluda, when he was interim president.

To all this is added an interest in football in general, but also in Formula 1 or tennis. Thus, Riquelme has proudly mentioned in more than one interview the sponsorship of the Municipal Football School in his hometown, but also the sponsorship of Orihuela or even the motorcyclist Alberto Fernández. Since 2025, he sponsors the Rafa Nadal Academy Team by Cox (paddle tennis) and the Team Rafa of electric boats. "For me, it is an honor that the sports schools bear the company's name [Cox]," he said in an interview with the local media Aquí Medios de Comunicación. Him and who else?

But this Tuesday Florentino Pérez spoke in plural: "Some children who want to run [for president of Real Madrid] [...], who talk to the electricity companies [to have the guarantee]". And he challenged them to do so: "This is the opportunity I offer them".

Here, all eyes are on the connection between Cox and Iberdrola, and specifically on who has led the sale of the electricity company's subsidiary in Mexico: David Mesonero (Salamanca, 1980), a director at the company chaired by Ignacio Sánchez Galán, with whom Florentino has a historic rivalry marked by the attempt to acquire, through ACS, the construction company he also chairs, a significant part of Iberdrola.

A businessman linked to the world of football consulted by ARA believes that it is not difficult to "find executives with sufficient assets to preside over Madrid". The problem, he believes, is "the power of influence" that Florentino has. This could be Riquelme's acid test, who in any case does not hide his pride in his network of "vip" friends –from Antonio Banderas to Iker Casillas–, nor his role as an ally of the Vatican. "I have the opportunity to share all the work and effort with the Pope [Francis] about three times a year", Riquelme explained in 2020 about Cox's role with the Scholas Foundation.