Florentino Perez has just unexpectedly held a press conference right before the campaign to run for president of Real Madrid. When the press conference was scheduled for May 12 (local time), many people thought this was the time for the 79-year-old owner to announce his resignation.
However, the first words Perez said after entering the press conference room were: "I am sorry to tell many people that I will not resign!".
Those who want to run against me, they can do that. I will also do so to protect the interests of the members of the club's board of directors. If anyone wants to run, just be natural but don't do it vaguely" - Perez added.
In 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025, Perez was re-elected president of Real Madrid in the context that the team did not need to hold elections. Recently, rumors about him leaving his seat began to spread when the "Godfather" of the Bernabeu stadium was suspected of having cancer.
Some people rumored I had terminal cancer but I'm still here, the president of Real Madrid and my group. My group has 170,000 employees, revenue of 50 billion Euros per year.
I cannot run both places if I cannot ensure perfect health. If I really had cancer, when I went for an examination, wouldn't that be spread everywhere? There are too many fabrications about this" - Perez denied.
However, unlike the last 4 times, why did Perez call for elections this time? The owner of the "White House" can justify it by saying he wants to overthrow his opponents publicly. Perez knows that there are many opposing factions to seize control of Real Madrid. Therefore, he wants to hold public elections to gain more support from members of the executive board.
On the other hand, Perez was re-elected last time in 2025, but for the past 2 seasons, Real Madrid has been empty-handed and has had countless scandals. Therefore, he needs a public boost to continue to hold power, dispel all rumors. Recently, Perez has also felt that the support of fans is declining, so he needs to tighten his grip on power to prevent everything from slipping out of his hands in an uncontrollable way.
This is the first time since December 2015 that Perez has proactively held a press conference. When he entered the auditorium with CEO Jose Angel Sanchez, everyone felt that there would be noteworthy statements because Perez did not naturally decide to hold a press conference for the first time in 11 years.
Perez's press conference response was judged to have many sections that were not focused. When asked by reporters about the club's next development direction after 2 disastrous seasons of achievements, the Real Madrid owner only focused on refuting the media campaigns targeting him. Perez even spent a significant amount of time criticizing a reporter from ABC news agency.
One of the incidents that the media was most interested in was the brawl between captain Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni. Perez said that such incidents are normal within the team. The only thing is that this time it is in a terrible color because the information was leaked out in a negative way.
The players have always argued like that throughout the years I worked here, which is not unusual. The only difference is that this time the incident was revealed to the outside and many media outlets joined in with the bad guys. Fortunately, the board of directors knew who the information was leaked from.
I think this is very bad, like exposing the shirt to everyone. In 26 years of my tenure, there has never been a year when players have not quarreled with each other, but every time, all information is only known internally to the team. Players fighting is not as bad as leaking it out" - Perez shared.
Finally, when talking about Real Madrid being empty-handed for 2 consecutive years and being described by the media as collapsing, Perez completely denied it. According to him, the team just won both the Champions League and La Liga more than 2 years ago, so it cannot be said that the current achievements are chaotic.
When talking about Alvaro Arbeloa's future, Perez avoided it to maintain respect for his 43-year-old coach. Perez said that this is not the time to talk about changing coaches, there are many other things that need to be prioritized for resolution.
