European Super League; You Were Never the Savior Florentino Perez, You Were the Problem

And so it came to pass that after 48 hours of announcing a European Super League, the plans have been rendered futile. Manchester United has today announced that executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward will step down from his role at the end of 2021 after 16 years at the reds. Juventus President Andrea Agnelli who was one of the masterminds of this project might or might not be resigning. Then there is the face of the campaign, 74-year-old Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. The one who came out with threats of secession.

The tyrant did not just announce the project, he gave one of the most bizarre, egotistic, and insufferably arrogant interviews the world has ever seen. On El Chiringuito, the Madrid boss mentioned saving football at least 4 times on the much-derided TV channel, claiming that the new league would keep the “important clubs” afloat and they could then throw a rope to the smaller clubs.

Here’s the thing you arrogant piece of shit, you couldn’t save your damn club, how the hell are you going to save the over 1000 clubs around Europe you twat? 

The gross total debt figure at Madrid now stands at a whopping €901m with the net debt at €355m. This man was touting covid-19 as a reason for the financial crackdown and still undertook a 575 million Euro project to renovate the already magnificent Santiago Bernabeu. The plans were hatched in 2016 but the project started right under the nose of the pandemic. This European Super League project was simply a cover-up of the financial impudence of these football decision-makers. The loan conditions agreed upon when they requested the renovation of the Santiago Bernabeu was €575m for a term of 30 years with a fixed interest of 2.5%, bringing the total cost to €796.5m. It also includes a three-year grace period for its repayment, meaning that Madrid pays a fixed annual fee of €29.5m from July 2023 until July 2049.

Should we talk about wasteful transfer dealings? Perez’s project save-a-Brazilian child has seen him sign Vinicius Jr for 46 million Euros, Rodrygo for 45 million Euros, and Reinier Jesus for 35 million Euros. All of them put together barely had 20 appearances before football savior Perez decided to sign them. This is the same Perez who decided to replace the greatest goalscorer in history Cristiano Ronaldo with Eden Hazard (160 million Euros), a player that had only scored 20 league goals twice in his career. Do we talk about the silly 60 million Euro move for Luka Jovic while Karim Benzema is in his prime years? Or the fact that he has an 85 million Pound player on 600 thousand a week wages out on loan?

Perez can talk all day about saving football but he was only ever out to save himself from disgrace caused by mismanagement. So was Juventus’ Andrea Agnelli who spent 100 million Euros on a 33-year-old footballer and does not know how to move him on. Or do we talk about the pointless swap deal for Arthur and Miralem Pjanic? Or the exchange of Joao Cancelo for Danilo? Barcelona, one of the most successful clubs in the modern era is on the verge of bankruptcy and even though the pandemic accelerated the process, it was kickstarted by mismanagement by the top executives with pointless transfers for Malcom Oliveira (42 million Euros), Antoine Griezmann (126 million Euros), and Coutinho (140 million Euros). There is also the 110 million Euros deal for Ousmane Dembele but let us pretend like that was a good deal at that point. 

This Perez came out to speak against a monopoly while his club eats almost 10% of the La Liga TV rights. In the 2019/2020 season, Perez’s Madrid pocketed 155 million Euros which is almost twice what the 4th placed Valencia received from the deal. The same man who just won his presidentship unopposed. 

“Young people are no longer interested in football. Why not? Because there are a lot of poor quality games and they are not interested, they have other platforms on which to distract themselves.

What a load of crap! You are 74, you have no idea what the young mind wants to see. No, Perez, you were never out to save football. You were out to save your ass from the shame of your mismanagement. Perez, you were never football’s savior, you were always the enemy. After this failed coup, we want to see you resign. Do the honorable thing and resign Perez.