Perez risks a nation’s wrath for cheap deal

Real president puts club interests first after being priced out of Pochettino move, says Sam Wallace

It was only 17 days ago that Florentino Perez claimed that he had won as many Champions League titles – five – as the greatest name in his team, Cristiano Ronaldo, and since then, it is hard to think of much that has gone right for Real Madrid’s all-powerful president.

Zinedine Zidane, his threestraight Champions League winning manager, was given a glimpse of the future and decided that he would rather protect his reputation by leaving.

The appointment of the Spain manager Julen Lopetegui as Zidane’s replacement turned into one of the greatest World Cup debacles in history, when the Spanish football association (RFEF) responded by sacking the 51-yearold on the eve of the tournament.

At the heart of that decision is Luis Rubiales, the president of the RFEF, who has worked his way up via the players’ union to his current position. He is no pushover and, after being told just five minutes before Madrid announced the appointment on Tuesday, his reaction has been telling.

In the hours before Lopetegui’s sacking, much of the Spanish media, including Marca, was reporting that the players had intervened on their coach’s behalf to save him, but Rubiales had other ideas. The decision to pinch the Spain manager on the eve of the World Cup finals, with so little notice given, came as a shock.

It is a change of mood around Perez, who is not only used to getting his own way, but also accustomed to being told he is right while doing so. Rubiales is notable for being one of the few people in the Spanish game who seems to be prepared to do otherwise.

The episode reflects badly on Perez, a man who puts the interests of his club before that of his national team, although, given Real’s stranglehold on the Spanish game, it has hardly come as a surprise.

The appointment also says a lot about the situation in which Real find themselves. The club, who once dominated the transfer market, no longer have the financial power to buy the world’s most famous players or appoint its greatest managers. The simplest answer as to why Lopetegui was appointed was that he cost €2million (£1.76million) in compensation, while Perez’s first choice, Mauricio Pochettino, could have cost as much as €70 million (£62million). Perez is presiding over an annual wage bill of €406million (£358million), around

€100 million (£88 million) more than that of the two Manchester clubs. The redevelopment of the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium is woefully behind schedule and will not add a single extra standard seat. His presidency is unopposed, a consequence of the rule-changes he introduced to require any candidate to have a €75million bank guarantee behind them.

The general assembly of the club is dominated by delegates loyal to Perez making any meaningful debate on the future impossible.

That is before one comes to the situation of Ronaldo, who is yet to agree the new contract he was promised, or the uncertain future of Gareth Bale.

Real’s extraordinary success of the past five years in Europe when four of the Champions League titles have been won by this generation of players has shut down much of the opposition.

Behind the scenes, the future of the club seems less clear under their 71-year-old president. His bulldozing through of the Lopetegui appointment is fairly typical, the difference this time being that it has had consequences that put Spain’s most powerful club at odds with its national team. Lopetegui never felt like the best appointment for Madrid – rather it was the simplest and the cheapest. Yet the remarkable events of the past few hours have meant that this new post-zidane era has had the most toxic of beginnings.