Florentino Pérez said on television that Real Madrid will make a 150 million euro offer on Tuesday for a top Champions League player, a move he said would be the biggest fee the club has ever paid for a signing. He did not name the player, but he ruled out Michael Olise, Jérémy Doku, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane, and said the target is an attacking midfielder or forward.
The Real Madrid president made the remarks on Horizonte with Iker Jiménez, and they landed in the middle of election coverage that has turned his future plans into the main campaign issue. Pérez said the player would be on the same scale as Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo or Kaká, calling him a “total galáctico” and saying that when Madrid signs someone, it is to excite the fans.
He also went beyond the transfer market. Pérez said that if he wins the election, Mourinho, Konaté and Dumfries will come, with “more” still to follow. He said Mourinho would return as coach and credited him with giving the team competitiveness, even though Madrid won five Champions Leagues after he left. The list was meant to signal ambition, but it also showed how much of his case rests on the idea that only he can keep the club moving at that scale.
That argument ran into the sharpest line of the night. Pérez said Real Madrid belongs to its 100,000 members and cannot be sold under any circumstances, while also insisting that nobody will defend the club better than he can. He said he had detected a kind of collusion in the media and inside the club to destabilize Madrid, said he wanted to cut it off at the root, and even named Enrique Riquelme in that context. He also said he was angry, and that his decision to call elections was meant to stop that destabilization.
Pérez tied the present fight to his own history at the club, saying he returned in 2009 after what he described as a sinister previous stage, when people who were not from Real Madrid were brought into assemblies. He said he has won 66 titles as president and that nobody has lifted more European Cups than him. Those numbers are part of the force of his case, but Tuesday is the real test now: the club expects a record bid, the identity of the player remains hidden, and the next reveal may tell voters whether this is a promise built for the campaign or a move that can actually be signed.
