Even by Florentino Pérez's standards, this was exceptional self-interest. It was the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, and the Real Madrid president felt rushed as he prepared to meet his rivals in Liverpool. The two clubs were not only opponents in this match, but also partners in the European Super League concept, which was only a few days away from its inauguration.
The overall goal was for the richest clubs to withdraw from the Champions League, and Pérez was ready to inform the world. He hoped to make the announcement on Thursday, following the second leg of Real Madrid's match against Liverpool. The trouble was that the date was April 15th, and Liverpool was utterly unwilling to launch. Pérez didn't understand why not. It was politely stated to him that today was the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, a melancholy day when Liverpool commemorated the 97 fans who died in a crush during a 1989 FA Cup match.Pérez understood this, but he was perplexed by the level of anxiety over 'something that happened 30 years ago'. Those who remember the exchanges don't believe Pérez was purposely disrespectful. It was more that he can never look past what is important to Real Madrid and will never accept anything that does not guarantee the Spanish club's continued success in football.
Real Madrid's president would confidently say, "Y así es," as if it were a self-evident truth. That's how things are. That has been the case for the vast majority of contemporary football history. The great white sharks, such as Real Madrid and Barcelona, prevailed, and everything else followed. Except, as Norwegian Football Federation head Lise Klaveness puts it, the game is in 'a time of exceptional transformation'. That aversion to regulate has resulted in a world that is now beyond the control of Pérez and the European entrepreneurs who dominated European football for the past half century. This is why Silvio Berlusconi sold AC Milan in 2017.
Football's greed has caused the game to develop to the point that, as long predicted, it is now 'eating itself'.
Barcelona is only one of several instances. Camp Nou is the beginning point for a line that connects all of this. In 2008, Pep Guardiola formed a club that had such a great image of football that every autocracy want to emulate it. This was more than just influence. It was a worldwide admiration. By 2024, Guardiola and the majority of Barcelona's top figures would have worked under state control, as the crisis-hit Catalan club was being probed for alleged bribes to a former referee. That was one of several such cases that endangered football's entire legitimacy, the most notable of which was the inquiry into Manchester City for over 100 alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules.
Guardiola's Barcelona left such an indelible mark on the game that everyone, especially state-sponsored clubs, wanted a piece of it. This remarkable work of ingenuity resulted in the club's destruction, at least in its purest form. Barcelona was far from blameless in this. They made terrible decision after horrible decision, as if driven insane by the new environment.
Barcelona had a significant role in legitimizing Qatar in sports, becoming one of the earliest and largest platforms for the country's advertising. That began with the Qatar Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al Missned, one of the former emir's wives. The two brothers, Sheikh Tamim and Sheikh Jassim, were overjoyed that it satisfied their mother. The aim was always for the area to belong to a state-owned company, which finally became Qatar Airways. If the criticism at the time was that Barcelona had lost its essence, the club was about to be entirely hollowed out.
PSG was not the only club who purchased players. The global obsession with Barcelona's approach led the hierarchy to believe they had established a formula to fix football. Their young philosophy would continue to produce stars, and the admiration for it would draw the biggest names in the game. It was designed to be the most virtuous of cycles. The difficulty, as is common in such cases, was believing that the majority of this was due to design rather than luck. While it's undeniable that Barcelona had the strongest academy setup in the world, it was a generational stroke of luck that a historically good group came together at the same time.
Barcelona had built up a large stockpile, but it was insufficient. The club also got enamored with star power, to the point where the roster became ridiculously top-heavy. They represented the game's propensity to eat itself.
Barcelona had spent so much money on players that they were unable to retain the greatest player in club history. By the summer of Messi's departure for PSG in 2021, Joan Laporta, the club's re-elected president, stated that their total debt was €1.35 billion. It pretty perfectly summarized an argument made by a competing boss. 'You could give Barcelona €1 million tomorrow, and they would spend €1.2 billion on players.' Barcelona had taken the new game to the limit. PSG had selected their top players. The City had taken their concept.
It didn't help that this was the hubristic high point of the salary race. In the summer of 2019, Real Madrid and Barcelona signed 28-year-olds Eden Hazard and Antoine Griezmann for more than €100 million each. The debts of the two Spanish teams were at least €1 billion each.
Barcelona had descended into football mania. Pérez publicly complained that it was difficult to 'compete on a level playing field' when Real Madrid's pay cost increased by 32% in one season only to keep their Champions League-winning squad together.
Barcelona and Real Madrid were suffering from the world they had built. One response was to come up with a plan to alter the world again.
In the 1990s, Prime Minister José María Aznar's reprogramming of Spanish capitalism fueled growth in banks, construction, and football. Pérez handled all of this, mostly through his construction firm, ACS. The club's worldwide profile also helped secure contracts all across the world. ACS introduced him to Key Capital Partners. El palco, the presidential box of Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu stadium, has been compared to Davos in a royal court.
From there, Pérez, a 'Spanish oligarch', is said to have told one legislator that 'Real Madrid is a Spanish brand standing above the government'. So much for it being a people's club, with members voting on presidents. The truth is that Pérez has made the regulations so restrictive - time spent as a director, a large deposit - that he is one of only a few viable candidates. Pérez is fully uncontested in this setting, as well as the media-industrial complex that surrounds the club. Emiliano Butragueño, a Real Madrid icon, views him as 'a superior being', while Roberto Carlos calls him a 'big visionary'.
The concept of 'ilusión', which broadly means excitement from spectacle, serves as the driving force behind this vision. This is why Pérez grew infatuated with stars, often at the expense of his squad. The first Galacticos disbanded after the president insisted on trading defender Claude Makelele for David Beckham. Pérez has only recently given Brazilian technical director Juni Calafat the authority to restructure the team around promising young players like Jude Bellingham, but that choice was forced by the new world order. Pérez had to alter it again. The Super League represented the pinnacle of illusion.
That wasn't the reaction when the news broke. There was disbelief, followed by what one director described as 'a tsunami of s***'.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has literally turned to advisors. "Is this good or bad?" When told "bad," Johnson immediately had a staff member call a Super League executive and inform him that any arrangement with English clubs was off.
Private funding was one option, despite the fact that both are intended to be ring-fenced by supporter ownership, a value undermined by the need to compete. Sixth Street Partners agreed to a €207.5 million contract with Barcelona for 10% of TV rights and a €380 million deal with Real Madrid for 30% of stadium operations. These actions caused confusion within football, but also raised concerns that such 'indirect participation' could become more common.
So, the wage race has pushed the modern game to the brink, with Barcelona president Joan Laporta unknowingly articulating the impetus: "Winning is a universal human emotion." So are irritation, wrath, panic, and existential dread, all of which Barcelona has experienced in recent years. Their modern story is truly a morality tale. Barcelona portrayed an ideal of football on the field before demonstrating how bleak the industry can be off it. As part of the same decline, they have gone from inspiring the world with their performances to potentially damaging trust in the sport.
The Caso Negreira, in which Barcelona is being investigated for payments to a former referee between 2000 and 2018, has the potential to transform perceptions of football's most significant era. Its possible ramifications, together with the Manchester City case, might have far-reaching consequences for the city's future. Barcelona has emphasized that this was all "very normal" and only for "scouting reports". The city maintains its innocence.
Unlike Barcelona, Real Madrid negotiated the new environment so well that they were eventually able to come full circle and offer Kylian Mbappé a lucrative contract. Legacy does have lasting power. That's how things are, as Pérez would say.
It didn't help that this was the hubristic high point of the salary race. In the summer of 2019, Real Madrid and Barcelona signed 28-year-olds Eden Hazard and Antoine Griezmann for more than €100 million each. The debts of the two Spanish teams were at least €1 billion each.
Barcelona had descended into football mania. Pérez publicly complained that it was difficult to 'compete on a level playing field' when Real Madrid's pay cost increased by 32% in one season only to keep their Champions League-winning squad together.
Barcelona and Real Madrid were suffering from the world they had built. One response was to come up with a plan to alter the world again.
It was simply a pleasant coincidence that the Super League acted as a massive refinancing opportunity for the Spanish and Italian clubs. Barcelona and Real Madrid were to get an additional €30 million apiece for the first two seasons. They would also be given the ability to control state-owned teams and oligarchs, who needed to remain at the top of their game for political reasons.
Underpinning it all was a 'intense anger' toward some bureaucrats in Nyon who told them how to manage their enterprises. "We know how to make this 100 times better," one executive insisted. It's been described as "real masters of the universe stuff" and "self-made men dismissing regulators who hadn't put in a penny". The overwhelming counter-argument, of course, was that this was the collective system they had agreed to. The group was even told that the Champions League revisions, which were still apparently being negotiated, would provide them everything they sought.
It was no longer sufficient. Pérez, with the support of Joel Glazer, was determined to begin the Super League as quickly as possible. Despite the lack of a spokesperson, it was clear who the driving personality was. In many ways, Pérez personified Real Madrid. The excess of entitlement was only equaled by the lack of self-doubt.
"We created FIFA," he'd say. "We are the reason the Champions League is what it is." Some saw the entire Super League as an act of desperation rather than power, out of concern that Real Madrid would lose their dominance. Pérez was a particularly particular product of his country's socioeconomic history. Spain, along with Portugal, was one of only two European dictatorships that survived WWII, and General Franco intended to rebuild the economy around three pillars: services, tourism, and entertainment.
Underpinning it all was a 'intense anger' toward some bureaucrats in Nyon who told them how to manage their enterprises. "We know how to make this 100 times better," one executive insisted. It's been described as "real masters of the universe stuff" and "self-made men dismissing regulators who hadn't put in a penny". The overwhelming counter-argument, of course, was that this was the collective system they had agreed to. The group was even told that the Champions League revisions, which were still apparently being negotiated, would provide them everything they sought.
It was no longer sufficient. Pérez, with the support of Joel Glazer, was determined to begin the Super League as quickly as possible. Despite the lack of a spokesperson, it was clear who the driving personality was. In many ways, Pérez personified Real Madrid. The excess of entitlement was only equaled by the lack of self-doubt.
"We created FIFA," he'd say. "We are the reason the Champions League is what it is." Some saw the entire Super League as an act of desperation rather than power, out of concern that Real Madrid would lose their dominance. Pérez was a particularly particular product of his country's socioeconomic history. Spain, along with Portugal, was one of only two European dictatorships that survived WWII, and General Franco intended to rebuild the economy around three pillars: services, tourism, and entertainment.
In the 1990s, Prime Minister José María Aznar's reprogramming of Spanish capitalism fueled growth in banks, construction, and football. Pérez handled all of this, mostly through his construction firm, ACS. The club's worldwide profile also helped secure contracts all across the world. ACS introduced him to Key Capital Partners. El palco, the presidential box of Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu stadium, has been compared to Davos in a royal court.
From there, Pérez, a 'Spanish oligarch', is said to have told one legislator that 'Real Madrid is a Spanish brand standing above the government'. So much for it being a people's club, with members voting on presidents. The truth is that Pérez has made the regulations so restrictive - time spent as a director, a large deposit - that he is one of only a few viable candidates. Pérez is fully uncontested in this setting, as well as the media-industrial complex that surrounds the club. Emiliano Butragueño, a Real Madrid icon, views him as 'a superior being', while Roberto Carlos calls him a 'big visionary'.
The concept of 'ilusión', which broadly means excitement from spectacle, serves as the driving force behind this vision. This is why Pérez grew infatuated with stars, often at the expense of his squad. The first Galacticos disbanded after the president insisted on trading defender Claude Makelele for David Beckham. Pérez has only recently given Brazilian technical director Juni Calafat the authority to restructure the team around promising young players like Jude Bellingham, but that choice was forced by the new world order. Pérez had to alter it again. The Super League represented the pinnacle of illusion.
That wasn't the reaction when the news broke. There was disbelief, followed by what one director described as 'a tsunami of s***'.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has literally turned to advisors. "Is this good or bad?" When told "bad," Johnson immediately had a staff member call a Super League executive and inform him that any arrangement with English clubs was off.
Private funding was one option, despite the fact that both are intended to be ring-fenced by supporter ownership, a value undermined by the need to compete. Sixth Street Partners agreed to a €207.5 million contract with Barcelona for 10% of TV rights and a €380 million deal with Real Madrid for 30% of stadium operations. These actions caused confusion within football, but also raised concerns that such 'indirect participation' could become more common.
So, the wage race has pushed the modern game to the brink, with Barcelona president Joan Laporta unknowingly articulating the impetus: "Winning is a universal human emotion." So are irritation, wrath, panic, and existential dread, all of which Barcelona has experienced in recent years. Their modern story is truly a morality tale. Barcelona portrayed an ideal of football on the field before demonstrating how bleak the industry can be off it. As part of the same decline, they have gone from inspiring the world with their performances to potentially damaging trust in the sport.
The Caso Negreira, in which Barcelona is being investigated for payments to a former referee between 2000 and 2018, has the potential to transform perceptions of football's most significant era. Its possible ramifications, together with the Manchester City case, might have far-reaching consequences for the city's future. Barcelona has emphasized that this was all "very normal" and only for "scouting reports". The city maintains its innocence.
Unlike Barcelona, Real Madrid negotiated the new environment so well that they were eventually able to come full circle and offer Kylian Mbappé a lucrative contract. Legacy does have lasting power. That's how things are, as Pérez would say.
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