Florentino Perez on the Super League: “It’s time to act” | Football | Sport

In the Real Madrid president’s annual speeches to members’ meetings, the part in which Florentino Perez points out the future direction is becoming increasingly important. This Sunday attracted an institution that is approaching one of the most decisive turning points in its history. He announced that he would put a new club model to a referendum to protect his €10 billion in “economic assets” and confirmed his intention to launch a Super League soon: “This system is not working and this is the critical moment. “It’s time to act.”

Something decisive happened between the 2023 Assembly and this Sunday: on December 21, the CJEU issued a ruling placing limits on the powers of UEFA and FIFA to prevent competitions like those promoted by the Madrid president. “This puts a resounding and permanent end to decades of monopoly,” Perez said. “We can proudly say that just as the vision of Santiago Bernabeu contributed to the creation of the European Cup, overcoming resistance as now from FIFA and UEFA, Real Madrid has once again honored its history. We may feel very proud, but we did not fight this battle just to celebrate the verdict. Now it’s time to put this into practice,” he continued. “And the sooner we do this, the better.”

Perez returned to his arguments. He believes a format with more interesting matches is needed to generate more income, and in an environment where clubs have more control over competitions and their calendars, which he attributes to the rise in injuries.

In addition to changes in formats and management, the President of Madrid believes that a transformation of the content distribution model is necessary. “Fans are suffering from the unacceptable costs of watching football,” he said. “Piracy has reached unprecedented levels and the strategy of managers – in this case La Liga – is to take legal action against consumers who do not have the financial means to watch football. This strategy does not work, and this has been demonstrated in the film and music industries.” That’s why he believes the way forward is the Unify platform planned in the Super League project, which promises to broadcast all matches over the Internet for free.

To move along this path, he considers the company of Barcelona important, with which he tried to reduce tension, despite the requests of his partner during questions. “I’m not going to be angry with Barca. “Barca and Madrid must help each other,” he said. They remain together in the Super League project and it seems that they are on parallel paths towards future changes in the club model, something that Perez has hinted at several times when mentioning his plans for Madrid: “Barcelona is also involved in this and Athletic will be there too.”

The President of Madrid outlined these great transformations, which he believes are inevitable, at a meeting that approved the first ever accounts in which the club received an income of more than 1 billion euros. There were 1.073 million, and this season’s budget provides for 1,127.9.

These projections do not include revenue from concerts paralyzed by neighbors’ legal battle. “If the concerts can be held, we will do them,” he said and assured that they would have a minimal impact on the bills, “about 1% of the budget.” They also did not budget for revenue from the new Club World Cup due to lack of knowledge of the data.

In the dispute over the Ballon d’Or, whose club was not present at the gala, he also mentioned UEFA, which first “co-organized” it. “It should have gone to a Real Madrid player,” he said, mentioning Vinicius, Carvajal and Bellingham as the main recipients. “Rodri deserved the Ballon d’Or, but not this year.”