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On Wednesday he said that to resign would be "cowardly". On Friday, he resigned.
On Wednesday he had the full support of his Board of Directors. On Friday, they deserted him.
On Wednesday, he swore on his "honour" that he had nothing to do with the shady goings-on at last month's AGM. By Friday, those who took the fall were pointing the finger of blame in his direction.
Vicente Boluda, vice-president of Real Madrid, will take over as interim president until new elections take place in the summer, after the current season ends.
Ramón Calderón has had a turbulent few days, ending with his resignation as Real Madrid president. But he has been sowing the seeds of his own destruction from the moment he was elected:
July 2006: Wins the presidential elections, promising to bring Kaká, Cesc and Robben to the club. Out of these three, he only managed to sign the Dutchman, over a year after the promise was made.
October 2006: One of the failed candidates for the presidency, Juan Miguel Villar Mir, takes the club to court to have the postal vote (annulled at Calderón's insistence) reinstated.
December 2006: Calderón's first AGM ends with a rejection of his proposals to reform the postal vote, amid calls by angry socios for new elections to legitimise the presidency.
January 2007: In probably the worst of his many foot-in-mouth moments, Calderón is recorded by a journalist as he makes a number of unflattering remarks about his players. He later has to apologise to the entire squad.
February 2007: After a number of court appearances, a judge rules that the Real Madrid electoral process, especially those statues regulating the postal vote, are invalid, and therefore the election result must stand. However, the process has, to date, not been reformed.
June 2007: Despite winning Real Madrid's first title for four years, Fabio Capello is sacked as Real Madrid coach. Two weeks later, Bernd Schuster is installed as his replacement, in what Calderón terms "a search for excellence". Well, we know how that ended.
September 2007: Another AGM, another failure to institute any meaningful reform.
March 2008: Calderón is accused by journalist José Antonio Abellán of manipulating the selection of socios compromisarios: Real Madrid members empowered to vote at AGMs on behalf of the whole membership. He had previously accused him of "selling" season tickets in exchange for votes at the presidential election. Neither allegation has yet been challenged in court.
May 2008: Calderón fails, once again, to reform the club statutes (which are, remember, legally invalid) in an Extraordinary General Meeting.
August 2008: After chasing him all summer, Real Madrid fail to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Worse, the club sells Robinho to Manchester City and does not find any suitable replacement in time for the start of the season.
October 2008: Calderón is accused of using the club's credit cards to fund his own lifestyle. There is little substantive proof, but the allegations about the president's tax affairs are quite damaging.
December 2008: Real Madrid sign two players in the winter transfer market, Lass and Huntelaar, only to find that UEFA rules mean only one of them can be registered to play in the knock-out stages of the Champions League. The youth director resigns and accuses the president of "lack of knowledge or interest in the youth teams". At the AGM, Calderón manages to have the accounts and budget approved, albeit with a slim majority, amid many calls for his resignation. He then fires the coach, Schuster, and replaces him with Juande Ramos.
January 2009: Marca publishes allegations of vote-fixing at the December AGM, finally resulting in Calderón's resignation as president. Allegations about fraudulent commissions in the signing of players like Van Nistelrooy and Cannavaro.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Going, going... gone
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Calderón hangs on... just
Ramón Calderón has managed to survive the 24 hours following the initial allegations of vote fixing at last month's AGM by Marca.
Late last night he gave a radio interview in which he denied any knowledge or collusion with any voting irregularities, and indicated that he was "tired" of the constant attacks and might not seek re-election to a second term.
In what is now starting to look like an orchestrated campaign, Marca today published the names and photographs of ten people at the AGM who were either socios with no voting rights, or not Real Madrid socios at all. In a cruel twist, one of them turned out to be a socio of local rival Atlético de Madrid!
Where yesterday it was the director in charge of the membership, Luis Bárcena, who read a brief statement announcing an investigation, today the president himself called a press conference and faced questions for over an hour, accompanied by his entire Board of Directors.
In a performance worthy of Richard Nixon during Watergate, Calderón fired the aforementioned Bárcena as ultimately responsible for the organisation of the AGM, but, more interestingly, he also fired another club employee who admitted responsibility, one Mariano Rodríguez Barutell, also known as Nanín.
Nanín was part of Calderón's election campaign and has been linked with serious irregularities during that campaign (though nothing has been proved) and was instrumental in getting the postal vote annulled by a judge. Most observers agree that had the postal vote stood (though it was probably corrupted), Calderón would not have won the election.
Ramón Calderón once again rejected calls for his resignation or for new elections, saying they were not necessary and that an investigative commission would be set up to determine what happened during the AGM. He also said that he would look for the AGM to be repeated, but that this was legally not a decision that the Board of Directors could take.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Calderón in new vote-fixing allegations
Ramón Calderón must have spluttered over his morning café solo as he read the allegations in Marca regarding his "theft" of the club's AGM last month.
The paper claims that Calderón "infiltrated" significant numbers of people into the Assembly meeting who had no right to vote to ensure that last year's accounts and next year's budget were approved. The motions were passed (the accounts fairly narrowly, with 55% of the vote) thus ensuring the president's continuity at the helm.
This turns up the heat on Calderón by yet another notch. Marca is by far the most mainstream and, in principle, friendly publication to Real Madrid, and for them to put this on their front page is basically a declaration of war on the president.
In response, the club's director responsible for the membership, Luis Bárcena, made a brief statement to the press:Before I begin, I wish to make it clear that both the President and his Board of Directors delegated the organisation of the Assembly in this general directorship, so any responsibility regarding the outcome of the Assembly is solely mine.
The first thing I'd like to say is that my first decision was to control access to the Assembly by making Members present their ID cards at the entrance of IFEMA's Palacio de Congresos. I did this in order to add transparency to the Assembly. It was an historic decision, given that nothing of the sort had ever been done.
The second and final thing I'd like to say is in regard to those people who supposedly infiltrated themselves in the Assembly with the purpose of destabilising it. We have decided to investigate on the matter and we have asked the Club's Commission for Social Discipline to confirm these facts and, in the case of finding any Club Members implicated, to immediately expel them from the Club.
Given Real Madrid's archaic voting system at AGM's, all the votes were counted by shows of hands, rather than by using ballot boxes. This means that anyone who was already in the room could vote and there is no paper trail of who cast which votes. There were calls during the assembly to change the system, but the petition was denied.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Three in a row
It's back to some semblance of order at Real Madrid: the best run of consecutive wins since September, the first away win since October, the best run of consecutive clean sheets since April. This is what Juande Ramos has achieved since he arrived almost exactly one month ago.
Following a widely anticipated loss at Barcelona which was nevertheless tempered by improved, if somewhat over-aggressive, defending, the former Tottenham boss has managed to extract six points from direct competitors (Valencia, Villareal) and win convincingly away from home for the first time in months.
Before getting too excited about the magnitude of that win, it is important to note that Mallorca are a team on the brink. Already in the relegation zone, they did nothing to suggest that they may be able to dig themselves out of that hole come the summer. Nonetheless, after some of the trouble Real Madrid has had this season to subdue allegedly weaker sides, there is no doubt that improvements have been made on Schuster's tactics and team selections.
Real were seemingly not hampered by being unable to train properly on the last day before flying out to Mallorca following the largest snowfall in Madrid for 30 years. Admittedly, scoring a goal after just two minutes does help, and it is Real's man of the moment, Arjen Robben, who grabbed the initiative, latching onto a quick counter-attacking move and squeezing the ball between the Mallorca 'keeper's legs.
Mallorca had set out five men in the defensive line, but, for all they did on the opener, they may as well have still been thinking about Christmas dinner. And they did not get better as, on the quarter hour, Higuaín jinked past several to lay it off for Raúl to cleverly backheel it into the net.
The Real Madrid captain was also celebrating his 500th league appearance, the sixth man ever to do so, and his goal (his 212th) effectively finished off the locals. It's staggering to think that, in his 15 seasons, Raúl has scored 20% of his side's total goal tally.
Nonetheless, that Casillas had so little work to do means that everyone else did their job properly. Lass looks like he has adjusted to his role and position admirably in just two games and ably assisted Gago in the holding midfielder roles.
Their positioning (why was it so difficult for Schuster to get this right?) meant that Pepe and Cannavaro could do their job in central defence, and even meant that the other two defenders, Heinze and Sergio Ramos, could get forward, adding width to the attack.
It was Sergio Ramos who scored Real's third in an offside position and made Juande Ramos comfortable enough with the eventual outcome, that he could afford to rest Robben and Raúl to give some minutes to Huntelaar (who could have scored a fourth) and youngster Palanca.
The result puts Real Madrid up to second in the standings, still twelve points behind runaway leader Barcelona, ahead of a seemingly simply home tie against last-placed Osasuna next Sunday.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
UEFA postpones decision on Huntelaar and Lass
UEFA's Control and Disciplinary committee did not finally make any pronouncements today as had been expected, regarding the registration of both 'Lass' Diarra and Huntelaar as Real Madrid players for the knock-out stages of the Champions League.
The story has been brewing for a couple of weeks now, ever since Real Madrid signed Lass from Portsmouth and then 'discovered', via the press, that UEFA rules state that of a maximum of three new players that can be registered for the knock-out stages by February 1st, only one can have played in another European competition, such as the UEFA cup.
Admittedly, Real Madrid have found themselves in a fairly unusual position, having lost three players for the remainder of the season before the year was out. However, UEFA rules are quite clear on this point, and have been for some years. Protestations to the contrary cannot disguise the fact that the club's sporting director, Predrag Mijatovic, or one of his team, should have known. The chances of a resignation, or, at the very least, some sort of apology for the mistake, are, shall we say, remote.
Mijatovic & Co. have tried to deal with this in typical fashion, acting as if it is someone else's fault. In this case, they argue that UEFA's rules are ambiguous and contradictory, given that third placed teams in the Champions League group stages then go on to compete in the UEFA Cup, and say they are prepared to appeal all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Besides the fact that it is unlikely that there is enough time for the appeals process to complete before the 1st February deadline, Real Madrid's directors are being at best disingenuous (and thus once again incompetent) or at worst just going through the motions for appearance's sake. The rules are quite clear (articles 17.17 and 17.18 if you want to look them up) and Real will have to pick one of their two recent acquisitions (probably Lass) for registration. Whether the rules are "fair", given Real Madrid's injury situation, is irrelevant, and UEFA may very well decide to alter them, but only in time for next season.
Update: UEFA finally announced late on Thursday evening that its Control and Disciplinary Body had rejected Real Madrid's request and that any appeals would be heard next week.
