Actual Madrid: Florentino Perez deliberate to maneuver membership to theme park
Florentino Perez deliberate to maneuver Real Madrid from the Bernabeu to a brand new stadium in the midst of a theme park referred to as ‘RealMadridLand’, just for the failure of the concept to fireside the European Super League mission.
The audacious plan – which is one in all quite a lot of detailed revelations from the brand new guide ‘Messi vs Ronaldo’ by Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson – acquired to this point that the Madrid president was in talks with a gaggle of former Disney executives led by long-time CEO Michael Eisner.
Perez had even drawn up sketches for rollercoasters that might comply with the trajectory of well-known membership objectives, similar to Zinedine Zidane’s volley to win the 2002 Champions League ultimate.
Perez had began to behave on the concept across the 2017-18 season, as he realised the drastic want to search out new income streams with the intention to sustain with the state-owned golf equipment in Manchester Metropolis and Paris Saint-Germain. It fell aside as a result of Eisner and his group realised Perez would wish 75% greater than the €1.4bn funds he had secured, as a result of sprawling nature of the mission.
They’d additionally raised issues in regards to the coaching floor being in the midst of the theme park, probably permitting rival golf equipment to view the soccer group’s tactical plans – a notion that Perez dismissed with the road: “Folks see all that stuff anyway.”
It was the price of conserving the squad collectively that first motivated the Madrid president, as a collection of pay rises had seen the wage invoice leap by 32 per cent over 2017. Perez had additionally famous how, in negotiations with brokers similar to Jorge Mendes and particularly over Cristiano Ronaldo’s eventual departure, Metropolis and PSG had consistently been raised as golf equipment who can be prepared to pay the cash that Madrid wouldn’t.
Realising the necessity for one thing drastic, the engineering billionaire believed {that a} theme park was in the end the identical as signing a Galactico when it comes to buzz across the membership, and that even the sacrilege of transferring from the Bernabeu could possibly be recast as vital evolution.
The thought had been in Perez’s thoughts for years, because the membership had held inner discussions over the chance in 2004, and even entered into negotiations to licence the membership title to a resort within the United Arab Emirates. That might have additionally concerned a marina within the form of the membership crest.
The guide particulars how the president now noticed it as a “monetary necessity” with the intention to maintain tempo, which led to the previous Disney executives being invited to the Bernabeu boardroom.
“In our world, we’re as massive as Disney,” he mentioned, in accordance with one of many guide’s sources who had been current. “Actual Madrid should do issues like this as a result of we’re the number-one membership, and the one means we are going to stay there’s by at all times being the primary massive innovator.”
‘RealMadridLand’ would have primarily served as a multi-purpose new headquarters for the membership, with an amusement park and stadium close to the present base of Valdebebas, in addition to a coaching complicated that includes each group from the under-sevens up. It was right here that Perez additionally introduced some sketches for particular person rides named after legendary gamers, having seen the Ferrari World amusement park in Abu Dhabi.
Whereas Eisner and his advisers had been impressed by the size of the proposal, they doubted the power to assemble. Perez at one level within the preliminary assembly sensed their concern, and pointed to the gathering of silverware within the boardroom. Beneath the 12 Champions League trophies of the time was a plaque formally recognising Madrid as Fifa’s finest membership of the twentieth century
“Everybody else is preventing for these trophies,” Pérez mentioned, earlier than the flourish. “Actual Madrid is preventing for this. We wish the following one in all these.”
Eisner’s group spent three months learning the plans and got here again with a listing of issues. Amongst them had been the truth that Madrid already had a Warner theme park and questions over whether or not ‘RealMadridLand’ might even break even.
There was then the situation of the coaching base.
“When you’ve got an upcoming match towards Barça, you may not need folks watching observe, as a result of there might simply as simply be a Barcelona fan recording the entire thing and determining your techniques,” one of many executives mentioned. That introduced Perez’s dismissal.
In the end, nonetheless, the Madrid president solely had agreements for €1.4bn in funding and a 130-acre web site. The previous Disney executives concluded €2.5bn was required in addition to a plot of land nearer to 250 acres as a result of lodges and convention centres. It led Perez to look elsewhere.
Source link