Florentino Perez : A man with the Midas touch who could do everything wrong

“Madrid’s plan is that there is no plan, there is no project. The plan is Florentino Pérez”

On June 24, 2003, two days after winning the La Liga, Real Madrid, to the shock of the football world, announced in a press conference, the sacking of their manager Vicente Del Bosque, and letting go of Captain Fernando Hierro. The then-sporting director Jorge Valdano sat in the press conference with a visibly bizarre looking expression and struggled for words as to why the sacking took place.

At this juncture, it must be remembered that Perez was appointed for his first stint with an array of promise.

After a failed presidential bid in 1995, Perez once again campaigned for it in 2000, under the same promises he did previously- a bid to cure the financial problems of the club and reverse the mismanagement by the previous boards, with an added promise of bringing Portuguese superstar Figo from Barcelona. This time, the campaign succeeded decisively, and he became the new President of Real Madrid. With a potential crisis at Camp Nou under the disastrous leadership of Joan Gaspart and the signing of one of the world’s best players, Real Madrid were expected to dominate Spain for an unprecedented time.

However, Vicente Del Bosque was sacked at the end of the season, even after winning the La Liga. Perez later famously quoted in a book that, “he didn’t understand physical fitness, he didn’t know tactics, he didn’t know how to manage a squad”. The signing of David Beckham, in spite of the right wing position being stocked with world-class players, and the sale of Claude Makélélé to Chelsea for being a defensive-minded player were the biggest blunders of Perez’s first stint as President. His reasons for Makélélé having an ‘average technique, slow pace and backwards or sideways passer’ were famously retorted by Zidane who said: “Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”

For all his on-field short-sightedness though, Perez did a marvelous job with the club's books. He cleared the club’s debt by selling off Real Madrid’s training ground to the government, Real's earnings jumped to approximately € 480 million and built a new stadium named ‘Ciudad Real Madrid’ in Valdebebas, Madrid. His strategies of venturing into an untapped Asian market and securing 50-50 splits of star players’ image rights were considered as innovations of the highest order and soon other clubs across the continent were following suit. However, due to the lack of success, Perez quit as President in 2006 stating the club needed a new direction.

The recent sacking of Rafael Benítez to make way for an inexperienced manager in Zinedine Zidane, Perez’s 11th appointment overall, baffled many. Benitez was sacked in just five months, after signing a three-year contract with the club, and it came at a time when Real are pretty much in the race for the title and the coveted Champions league and were eliminated from the Copa Del Rey only for allegedly fielding an ineligible player. New stint, same story.

Florentino Perez has, time and time again, displayed his expertise on the financial side of the game. Real Madrid are poised to announce football’s first £1bn kit deal with Adidas, certainly making it the highest-ever kit deal in the game.

The humiliating prospect of being perennial second-best to Barcelona without a sufficient blue print for the future will not only have a devastating effect for the club’s hierarchy, but also to its faithful fans as well. It's high time Perez understands that the success created off the field is as important as the success created on it, and such matters are best left to people who hold the expertise.