Real Madrid held an emergency meeting on Tuesday, and at 6:00 PM CEST, club president Florentino Pérez held a press conference in which he announced that he would be calling elections. The date of the elections is not yet known (Pérez hinted that they would be in two weeks), but they will take place three years earlier than scheduled, as they were not planned until 2029 (Pérez won the 2025 elections as he was the only candidate).
However, far from engaging in self-criticism after two trophyless seasons and multiple confirmed reports of unrest and bad faith in the locker room, Pérez began his press conference reading headlines and news stories, arguing with an ABC reporter live on air ("I have to cancel my ABC subscription to honor my father"), and boasting about the club's international prestige and the 66 trophies won in football and basketball since he took over in 2000 (in two separate spells).
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"I want to put an end to this wave of anti-Madrid sentiment in the press," said Pérez, who denounced manipulation and fake news in the press (apparently, some claimed he had terminal cancer, which he denied) and denounced the Negreira case, for which they are preparing a dossier for UEFA "for the good of football."
"I want to put an end to this anti-Madrid sentiment in the press," he said. "Why don't they want to destroy us because we didn't beat Barcelona the other day? It's an organized campaign. They're attacking me personally" said a combative and nervous Pérez, interrupting almost all of the reporters' questions and rejecting any discussion of sports (there's no news about the new coach, who is rumored to be Mourinho, nor about the players, although he said that fans shouldn't boo the players).
Florentino Pérez speaks out against journalists who "want to take over Real Madrid"
Pérez says he welcomes anyone who wants to run against him for president (Pérez has won the last five elections, since 2009, with no other candidates), and said he wants to let the members decide the club's future so that "the members don't lose ownership" of the club due to "a conspiracy of journalists who have concocted a scheme to take over Real Madrid."
"People want me, that's why I'm speaking out, because I can't accept this. They say Real Madrid is a mess, a disaster. But we are the most prestigious club in the world. Why do journalists want to attack the most highly regarded club? I'm ashamed to say that they elected the best president in history, but they did," Pérez said.
Using irony, he downplayed the fight between Valverde and Tchouameni, saying that "there are fights every day and it's no big deal," and to those who say that the midfielders' fight was the epitome of chaos at Real Madrid, "I've been dealing with that chaos for 26 years."
The 79-year-old president added that he would stay all afternoon because he was having a great time, said that they had been docked 18 points in La Liga and robbed of seven league titles while responding to a reporter, whom he gave the floor to because "that girl has the right to speak, and you're all very ugly."