Florentino Pérez: “We must remind UEFA who Real Madrid is”

Florentino Pérez presented his management report at the first point on the agenda of the Ordinary Assembly of Real Madrid, held this Saturday morning at the basketball pavilion of the Valdebebas sports city and which the representative members were able to attend in person or participate electronically. But The president left the hottest spots and in which he obtained the wide support of the members for the end of his speech, when he defended the Superliga project and presented the club’s arguments to oppose the agreement between LaLiga and CVC, to which described as “nonsense”.

“You have to remind UEFA who Real Madrid is”Perez said at the peak of his speech, which elicited applause from the partners under the clamor of the song “We are the kings of Europe” among the more than 400 delegates present. “Perhaps you have to remind him of the history of Real Madrid, which since its foundation has participated in all the transformations and guarded by the tradition of football. The only club that participated in the founding of FIFA and the promoter of the European Cup in 1955 with the newspaper The team. UEFA showed its opposition and Bernabéu suffered it for two years. Now we see ourselves in a similar situation, “explained Florentino.

The Real Madrid president insisted on the idea, already expressed in last year’s Assembly and in various public speeches, that “football is in danger.” “The abundance of entertainment offers is displacing football. Unattractive matches are the main cause that drives teams away from competitions.” AND recalled the anomaly that Real Madrid and Chelsea have not met in the European Cup until last spring, that Bayern and Liverpool have only met twice in 65 years or that Ajax, four times European champions, had to overcome several previous phases to participate in the next edition after being a semi-finalist of the tournament in 2019.

Florentino Pérez defined the Super League as “a global project so that football continues to excite all fans. “The pandemic has made us live one of the most difficult moments in our history and has forced us to accelerate a reflection on the future of football. The Super League is not just a new competition; it is trying to change the current dynamics of football”said Pérez. The top white president presented the Super League as a project “of freedom, self-government, financial fair play, transparency, solidarity and commitment to a new structure of football and respect for national competitions and compatible with them. Also respect for fans and the passion for football “.

The leader regretted the frontal opposition of UEFA and that it presented as an alternative a new competition system for the Champions League with a Swiss model “With more inconsequential, uncompetitive matches and no back and forth. A format that would further aggravate the problems of the competition”, he assured. The Madrid president criticized the deficiencies in the governance standards that govern UEFA and the “merely political interest of the current managers to maintain their privileges.”

“Everything was worth in order to end the Super League”

“Despite having tried the dialogue with UEFA, the violence of his reaction reaffirmed the need to guide our own destiny. Clubs were threatened with sanctions inappropriate for the rule of law and the presidents of a club such as Juventus were insulted. Everything was worth in order to end the Super League. “

“We fully trust the European courts and the Court of Justice of the EU. As a club, we will not give in to threats, which are illegal as the courts declared several times,” he proclaimed before a new battery of applause. “We will not give in because we have all listened to the UEFA president’s desire to change the rules of financial fair play and make them more flexible to allow financial injections to the State clubs and other agents external to football.“He continued.” We need transparent governance mechanisms and that all clubs can live from the resources of the game and not from the money of other actors with different interests.