An Open Letter to Real Madrid Fans

(Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Before I begin, let me just own up to the fact that I never liked your team.

While I was growing up, Real were the first of the financial juggernauts, throwing around money, bankrolled by the King of Spain, wielding an axe to catch a fly.

I disliked Real, their president and their "galactico" policy so much that I started supported Atletico Madrid as my second team.

But that’s not to say that I don’t respect the club, and its history. Nine European Cups, 31 league titles and 17 Copa del Reys. The all-white of Real has inspired so many, and been worn by some of the greatest heroes of all time, like Puskas and Di Stefano.

And now, though I’m not one of you, I’m asking for your help.

Football is not what it used to be. Change happens in any field, especially a sport that moves so quickly. Players are signed for more, wages are higher, gates are larger, and interest is massive. Only a fool would try and stand in the way of change, if that change is for the benefit of the game.

Once, it was quite acceptable to score a goal from an offside position in football. That was changed, and for the better, making the game fairer. It used to be fine for a goalkeeper to pick up pass backs, but that was changed, and now games flow faster.

But some changes do more harm than good. There was an idea to introduce a 39^th game in the English Premier League, played on foreign soil. This was ridiculous, and so it was abandoned.

And now your president, Real fans—that same man who suggested the "galacticos" and once turned me and many more away from your team—is back again. Florentino Perez is spending more on players than anyone else in the world. He’s destabilising the market, damaging the sport, and sinking Real Madrid heavily in to debt during a global financial crisis.

From your perspective, there’s no reason at all to suggest that these new signings will bring any success to Real, but they will definitely damage your club’s bank accounts and credit rating. Real Madrid themselves have proven time and time again that buying the world’s most expensive players can often lead to a more trouble than it solves.

And now, to add insult to injury to football, Sr Perez is demanding to UEFA president Michel Platini that he form a breakaway European Super League, containing 20 of the continent’s greatest clubs.

His reasoning, he says, is that the modern Champions League simply doesn’t favour the biggest clubs. Of course, the fact that a competition isn’t supposed to favour anyone seems to have passed him by.

His plans would lead eventually to the biggest clubs abandoning their domestic leagues, leaving a huge chunk of football clubs floundering in financial meltdown, picking up the pieces and competing for prizes no one cares about.

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