On June 7, Real Madrid will hold its first presidential elections with more than one candidate since 2006. On May 24, the club’s Electoral Board validated the candidacy of Enrique Riquelme, a 37-year-old businessman from Alicante and president of the Cox energy group. Florentino Pérez will compete for the presidency for the first time since he won in the second round against Ramón Calderón two decades ago. If there are already things that sound strange in these lines alone, wait until you know the details.
You have to be rich. The statutes of Real Madrid have a series of requirements to qualify for the presidency of the club: being Spanish, proving at least twenty years as a member and, above all, presenting a bank guarantee equivalent to fifteen percent of the club’s annual budget. When Florentino was re-elected without opposition in 2021, the limit already required mobilizing more than 150 million in guarantees. Since then, the budget has grown steadily. In fact, Pérez was proclaimed president in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 without any other candidate passing that procedure. Four consecutive terms, four re-elections without rival.
Riquelme got it. Riquelme obtained the requirement of 180 million that was requested this year, but just barely: he gathered the guarantee just a few hours before the deadline closed. In an open letter prior to the process, the candidate had asked to extend the period for submitting candidatures and proposed “a broader process that encourages the real participation of partners.” Florentino’s response was direct: “I don’t know that man. When they called them in 2000, I didn’t ask for more time, I showed up and won.” Riquelme, by the way, had already tried to run in the 2021 elections and withdrew his candidacy, alleging exactly the same thing, that the summer electoral calendar prevented him from preparing a worthy campaign.
The 85 hectares. The true core of these elections is on an 85-hectare plot of land north of Madrid, in Valdebebas, which the club has owned since it gave up its old sports city in the Cinco Torres area so that the City Council could build other types of infrastructure. The land is currently rated for sports use only and is worth around five times what it was before rezoning was put on the table.
What Florentino wants to do. In May 2025, Florentino Pérez presented his project for that land: the Madrid Innovation District. He did it in the board room of the sports city, with the president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida sitting next to him. None of the three answered questions from the media.
The club published a presentation video about which little more is known than what Ayuso mentioned in his speech: 8.5 billion euros of private investment, 25,000 jobs and the ambition to turn the enclave into “one of the main technological poles in southern Europe.” The project plans to attract artificial intelligence companies, big databiotechnology, audiovisual production and e-sports, and university areas will be built in the space.
You have to requalify. The municipal reclassification necessary to make the project possible was scheduled for approval during the first half of 2026. But the early elections for the club’s presidency, called before that procedure was completed, also served to allow Florentino to reach the decisive moment of the urban negotiation with the renewed mandate and without internal dissension. And then Riquelme landed.
Other ideas for that floor. This May 27, Riquelme presented his project for those same hectares: the City of the Partner. The plan consists of three spaces: first, a social and sports campus with preferential access for members and clubs; then, a premium category hotel with reduced rates for traveling fans; finally, a multipurpose pavilion with 15,000 seats for basketball and concerts, which the candidate justifies as an alternative to the canceled events at the Santiago Bernabéu.
The project figures are striking. More than 745,000 square meters of total surface area, with more than 100,000 square meters built and more than 350,000 of outdoor spaces. 11 soccer fields, 41 paddle tennis and tennis courts, 6 basketball courts, an aquatic center, a central club of 22,000 square meters, an auditorium and an agora for 25,000 people. Riquelme also proposes expanding the Alfredo Di Stéfano stadium to 20,000 spectators for the women’s team.
Other measures. Not everything is going to be bricks: other proposals from Riquelme are to reduce the membership fees by half as long as the team does not win a Champions League and to raffle 10,000 new season tickets among current members before a notary. There is also an original proposal that the member who gives up his seat at a match will receive 70% of the sale price in cash within seven days, instead of the deferred discount on the annual fee that currently applies.
Money doesn’t grow on trees. What Riquelme has not clarified is where the money comes from to raise all this. The Madison Innovation District of Florentino depends on the investment of large private companies that have not yet signed anything public, but the City of the Partner depends on something equally imprecise. Riquelme says he has been developing the project since 2021, although financing details have not been made public until now.
Florentino unleashed. The day Florentino called the elections, last May 12, he also gave the most talked-about press conference of the season. Pérez accused journalists of acting “in the shadows” to provoke a change in the board, assured that Barcelona had stolen seven league titles from him and ruled out having considered resignation while simultaneously calling for early elections. When presenting his own candidacy days later, he was more specific regarding Riquelme: he stated that the businessman’s candidacy “is orchestrated by those who made the most sinister stage of the club.”
On June 7, the conflict is resolved at the polls. The reclassification of Valdebebas, meanwhile, has no date. Whoever wins the elections will inherit that pending negotiation with the City Council and 85 hectares without construction. And it’s not as bad a deal as it might sound.
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