He's the Problem, but Florentino Perez Sees Himself as Real Madrid's Solution

Cameras flashed, keyboards tapped away and a well-dressed audience looked on, the spotlight of European football on Florentino Perez as he presented Rafa Benitez as Real Madrid manager in the presidential box at the Santiago Bernabeu. 

For Perez, such events have become regular, almost occasions of habit. Two years ago, he was going through the routine for Carlo Ancelotti. In between, he's smiled proudly at similar presentations for Daniel Carvajal, Isco, Asier Illarramendi, Gareth Bale, Toni Kroos, James Rodriguez, Keylor Navas, Lucas Silva and Martin Odegaard. He'll soon do the same for Danilo and possibly David de Gea.

But the Real Madrid president doesn't appear to have grown tired of the occasions. Instead, Perez relishes them, the events giving him the chance to take centre stage and project images of the club's grandeur. The presentation of Benitez was the latest such opportunity. 

"There is no one better than you when it comes to knowing what this badge, this shirt and this stadium symbolise," the president said at last week's unveiling, directly addressing the lifelong Real Madrid fan he'd appointed as coach. "We want even more because at this club we reject complacency. We are starting a new era with you; welcome home."

When done sporadically, there's nothing wrong with proclamations of new eras. New eras can be revitalising, positive forces of change driving improvement and the correction of previous errors. But there's something distinctly wrong with new eras when they're reached every 18 months.

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Real Madrid have now been under the presidency of Perez for 12 years across two stints. In that time, the president has gone through managers like they're disposable cameras: Vicente del Bosque, Carlos Queiroz, Jose Antonio Camacho, Mariano Garcia Remon, Vanderlei Luxemburgo, Juan Ramon Lopez Caro, Manuel Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho, Ancelotti and now Benitez. If Perez sees managers as representations of "eras," he's had 10 eras in 12 years in charge. 

"It's always somebody else's fault," wrote AS editor Alfredo Relano last month, describing Perez's attitude to failure following the sacking of Ancelotti. More telling, though, was Perez's response when asked what Ancelotti had specifically done wrong: "I don't know," said the president. He may as well have added: "but someone had to pay."

It's just never the man making the decisions. 

In 2004, Perez appointed Arrigo Sacchi as Real Madrid's director of football. Sacchi managed the famous AC Milan side that captured consecutive European Cups in 1989 and 1990, and Perez said the Italian would bring "substantial experience to help make our club more professional," adding that Sacchi would "organise and plan everything to do with football at the club."

Just a year later, Sacchi departed, criticising the president's transfer activity he'd been brought in to fix, and in 2009, told AS (h/t Goal): "If an aeroplane crashed in Colombia he [Perez] would blame the coach. Or if a player turned up drunk, the coach would be blamed. He always took away the coach's authority."

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In 2015, Ancelotti is the latest coach to be discarded at the Bernabeu, Perez viewing the Italian as the problem and himself as the solution following a season of underachievement, ignoring the fact that he created the problems Ancelotti couldn't solve. 

Last summer, Real Madrid were fresh from the capture of the club's 10th European title, the club having also snatched the Copa del Rey away from Barcelona in dramatic fashion. It was a summer for stability: Real had an outfit that had conquered the continent; the balance was right; an effective system had been devised; the coach was a good fit; morale was high. And the club's rivals were entering sticky periods of transition.

In the capital, Diego Simeone's remarkable Atletico Madrid was being gutted by Chelsea. East in Catalonia, Barcelona, after a barren season, were appointing a new boss, signing a banned forward and working out how to re-energise Lionel Messi.

All Real Madrid had to do was continue on their course; they already had a step on their title rivals. La Liga was theirs if they simply allowed the club's upward trajectory to continue. 

But Perez ripped it all up anyway. In his thirst for glamour, the president signed Kroos and Rodriguez, forcing Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso out the door, halting the progress that had been made in 2014 and essentially lighting a match on the squad that had delivered him La Decima. 

And for what? Shirt sales? Marketing? Branding? Twitter followers? Facebook likes? 

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A construction magnate turned football administrator, Perez is fixated on financial dominance. Instead of specifically targeting on-field success, he appears to believe it's simply an inevitable offshoot of wealth. 

"It is now nine consecutive years of revenue growth, and our figures are the highest in the global sports industry," he said at Real Madrid's annual general meeting in 2013. "There is no club, not in football or any other [sport], which can reach this figure. Even Forbes magazine has laid down before us."

While financial publications might be, footballing rivals aren't. In the last nine years of Perez's presidency, Real Madrid have won one league title. 

"Each year, we do the impossible in order to win, but they always take it from us by two points or something like that," Perez added. "I do not know why." Funny how he never has the answers to football questions.

More damning, however, is the fact that Perez is currently overseeing Real's leanest period in the Primera Division for more than 60 years. 

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Still, away from the pitch, Real Madrid continue to thrive in an economic sense.

Last year, Perez announced a record revenue figure of €603.9 million for the previous season, and the club has commercial partnerships with some of the world's biggest companies: Emirates, Microsoft, IPIC, Bwin, Audi, Nivea, Yamaha, Coca Cola, Samsung, Mahou and BBVA, among others.

But what has all of that amounted to?

Football, of course, is big business, but the objective is still to win; financial dominance means little if it doesn't translate to triumph. "Whereas the Catalans still just use business principles to fortify a football philosophy, Real Madrid use football to further a business philosophy," wrote notable journalist Miguel Delaney after Barcelona's latest league title last month. 

Under Perez, Real Madrid is no longer a club defined by its football. The president has overseen the shift of the club's identity away from the pitch, turning a serial winner into a gross underachiever. 

And yet, as coaches are repeatedly tossed away, as players come and go in Perez's revolving door, the common denominator remains in place.

"It's always somebody else's fault."

Follow @TimDCollins