BERNABEU UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Real Madrid is run by the supporters. Known as socios, there are 92,380 members paying a little more than £100 a year for member privileges.
One of those privileges is a vote in the club’s presidential elections. Prospective members must be recommended by two existing socios.
Every four years, around 2,000 socios are voted on to a Member Assembly whose tasks include overseeing budgets and approving loan requests. The assembly also has the power to discipline a president.
The current president is Florentino Perez (below). They are elected as the heads of an electoral group which also includes a board of directors.
A president must have been a member for at least 10 consecutive years and be a Spanish citizen at the time of the election.
He must also give a substantial bank guarantee that a bank or other lending institution will cover any losses if a particular borrower defaults on a loan. Socios then vote for their favoured candidates.
For many years, Spanish clubs negotiated their own TV deals and Real Madrid and Barcelona were able to claim almost 50 per cent of the total money on offer from broadcasters.
However, the current three-year deal, which has one season left to run, was structured similarly to the Premier League, with £1.7billion combined between La Liga’s teams. Clubs get more money for finishing higher up the league.
Like Barca, Real’s global appeal gives them a major advantage over their Spanish rivals in terms of commercial revenue and, according to Deloitte’s Money League, published in January, Los Blancos are worth £579.5million, £1.5m and second behind the richest club in football, Manchester United.
Simple. Their glittering history. The best players and the biggest names have always been drawn by the allure of the Bernabeu with Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Emilio Butragueno, Hugo Sanchez, Zinedine Zidane, Raul, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Luis Figo (both above), David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo among the Galacticos who have donned the famous white strip.
1) Gareth Bale (from Tottenham) 2) Cristiano Ronaldo (from Man United) 3) James Rodriguez (from Monaco) 4) Kaka (from AC Milan) 5) Arjen Robben (from Chelsea) 6) Xabi Alonso (from Liverpool) 7) Karim Benzema (from Lyon) 8) Angel Di Maria (from Benfica) 9) Asier Illarramendi (from Real Sociedad) 10) Danilo (from Porto)