Contact me
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:
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.
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.
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, 3 December 2008
Early Christmas present for Real Madrid
In most other countries, presents are opened on Christmas morning. In Spain, and some other countries with a Catholic tradition, the custom is to open presents on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, commemorating the visit of the Magi.
Whichever tradition applies, Real Madrid have bought themselves an early Christmas gift in the shape of Ajax and Holland striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. They will however have to wait until January 1st to open that present, when the winter transfer window opens.
It is of course only "coincidence", as Mijatovic insists, that this signing is being announced mere days before the club's AGM this Sunday.
Both Calderón and Mijatovic are expected to face heavy criticism at the meeting, particularly over their disastrous summer transfer policy where they sold Robinho to Manchester City to finance the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Coincidentally, the Portuguese winger was confirmed yesterday as the winner of the Ballon d'Or, making him the European Footballer of the Year.
Huntelaar was this year made Ajax captain by manager Marco van Basten, an important recognition for a 25-year-old. He is seen as both a short and long term replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy, who is out for the rest of the season, but is carrying an ankle ligament injury himself which means he won't play again until after he joins Real Madrid in January. This led Michel Salgado to joke that "we even sign them injured" on Tuesday evening as the agreement was made public.
Earlier in the week Ramón Calderón had promised new signings to alleviate the raft of injuries to the squad, although he said that any winter signings would come to "help out, because we already have the good players up front: Raúl, Higuaín and Robben". Let's hope Huntelaar sees a bit more of the pitch than Saviola, for instance.
On the technical side, there's little question that Huntelaar is a valuable addition to the squad. He's a centre forward at heart, so he will need good service from the midfield players, reather than tracking back to get the ball himself.
However, the presence of so many Dutchmen in the squad should make his adaptation relatively straightforward. His goal record speaks for itself; last season alone he scored 33 goals in 34 games in the Dutch league championship.
Real Madrid will pay Ajax 20 million euros for his services, plus another 7 million depending on results. Huntelaar will be in Madrid for a medical on Wednesday and is expected to sign a contract until 2013.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
And the scales tip yet again...
It's obvious, but perhaps it needs to be stated from time to time, and Xavi, the Barcelona and Spain midfielder put it succinctly the other day when he said that "Barça and Real are like a set of scales, when things go well for one, they go badly for the other, and viceversa".Just think back six months: Real Madrid were running rampant in a league championship they eventually won with an eighteen-point lead over Barcelona. When the Catalan club visited the capital, Real had already won the title and the Barcelona players had to do the traditional pasillo.
Key players like Eto'o were accused of forcing a yellow card in their previous game so they wouldn't have to face the humiliation in Madrid. Barcelona went on to lose the game 4-1. Club president Joan Laporta had to face a motion of confidence, which he narrowly defeated.
Fast forward to the last few weeks and you can see the scales have truly tipped. After six wins on the trot in September, Real Madrid have lost both Champions League ties against Juventus, been dumped out of the Copa del Rey by a third division side, and have managed just three wins in their last six league games, conceding ten goals in the process.
Conversely, Barcelona are riding high, with a five-point lead at the top of the standings, and a truly breathtaking start to the championship. They have scored thirty-six goals in eleven games and Eto'o is the current pichichi with thirteen. Confidence is clearly with the men in red & blue as the two sides look to their first meeting of the season in mid-December.
It's always been thus, but the roots of this particular debacle can clearly be traced to the disastrous way Real Madrid managed their summer transfer campaign. Having won the league early, and being in the enviable position of planning for the coming season with several months in their back pocket, they decided to base their entire strategy around the signing of one Cristiano Ronaldo (remember him?).
Ramón Calderón has always felt the long shadow of his predecessor, Florentino Pérez, and his failure to match the galáctico-signing antics of the Florentino years has always weighed heavily on this much-criticised president. Only yesterday, he hit out at Florentino's being photographed at a charity match organised by Zinedine Zidane: "It's sad. I would have loved to have seen that photo when we won two league titles and the supercopa. It illustrates that badly kept secret that he has spent the past two-and-a-half years obstructing and trying to discredit the Real Madrid board. He only thinks of his own personal gain."Calderón must have reasoned that the only way to make people forget about Florentino was to secure the services of one of the most sought-after players in the world. Well, we all remember what happened, which is that not only did Real Madrid not manage to sign the tricky Portuguese winger, but they also managed to enrage their most creative player (Robinho) to such an extent that he upped sticks and left them for Manchester City.
In all of this, Mijatovic has aided and abetted his boss, and Schuster claims to have been a mere spectator. However, while he may have a strong case to claim he has been handed an unbalanced squad, and taking into account a number of injuries in key positions, Schuster still cannot expect to be seen as purely innocent.
There is no excuse for conceding six goals and being eliminated from the cup by a third division side, not with this squad. There is no excuse for claiming he has "no idea" why his side is letting in a record number of goals.
We knew what we were getting when Schuster was signed. He's always been temperamental and difficult with the media, but when you barely get involved in a game you're losing and then go AWOL for several days without explaining what your strategy is to get the team out of the mess it's in, then, frankly, it's all downhill from there.
So the recent vote of confidence in the coach from the Real Madrid board is as convincing as Mijatovic's press conference to announce it. Fielding a question about what would happen if Real lost again this weekend at home to Recreativo, he avoided saying that the result was not linked to Schuster staying at the club: "I can't be certain as to what would happen. We would have no problem in taking difficult decisions if we have to, but we won't rush into them".We just need to keep watching to see whether the scales have any further to tip before they start heading back the other way...
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Ferguson still bitter over Ronaldo
He is also a controversial media figure, and has not spoken to the BBC since they broadcast a programme over his son's alleged involvement in the football transfer market, an allegation that was never proved.
Ferguson is known for his clever use of psychology on both his players and on opponents, most famously when he completely unsettled Kevin Keegan, then at Newcastle, for the 1996 league title. However, he is not above showing his frustration when things don't go his way, and frequently criticises referees when he feels his players aren't properly 'protected'.
In an interview with GQ Magazine published in The Times, he gives vent to some of his annoyances over the whole summer saga regarding the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo."I knew it was coming, so I wasn't surprised. When we sold Gabriel Heinze to Real Madrid [the previous summer], we knew it was going to happen, because Ronaldo was very close to Heinze. I knew what they were doing. I don't believe they were interested in Heinze – good player though he is. The endgame was to get Ronaldo.
What made it really obscene was that Madrid, as General Franco's club, had a history of being able to get whoever and whatever they wanted, before democracy came to Spain."
OK, you can perhaps forgive Ferguson being annoyed that his star player was the target of one of the biggest clubs on the planet, and that they made few bones about making it known (even though appearances were more or less maintained). The player and his advisers, who must surely shoulder a large part of the blame for the whole media circus, also unsurprisingly escape Ferguson's wrath - one wonders whether he would be so understanding had Ronaldo made a stronger attempt to leave Old Trafford. I wont even delve into the accusations he has faced of similar behaviour when he had wanted players to come to Manchester United.
But Ferguson is very conveniently ignoring both recent and ancient history. Gabriel Heinze did not go to Real Madrid in the summer of 2007 because he was part of a master plan to sign Cristiano Ronaldo. Heinze had been approached by Liverpool and Ferguson blocked the transfer, gifting a bargain to Real Madrid in the process. The whole thing was transacted in a matter of days, not weeks or months.
The whole General Franco claim is just laughable, all the more so in this day and age. Someone should perhaps point out that while Real Madrid won more league titles than either Barcelona or Atlético during the Franco years (14, vs. 8 and 7 respectively), Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona, clubs from parts of the country that had been against Franco during the Civil War, won more cup titles (9 and 8 vs. 6).
Even if any of that were true, the suggestion that in the 32 years since Spain became a democracy, Real Madrid still have the attitude that they can buy anyone they want when they want because of the Franco legacy is just plain bonkers, or to use Ferguson's own word, obscene.
Real Madrid have been seen as arrogant in European footballing circles because since Florentino put the club on a much sounder financial footing, they have been able to compete in the hyperinflationary transfer market. His policy of buying the best player on the market every year was the subject of worldwide media attention, even if, as we now know, it actually led to an unbalanced side that won no trophies for three years.
That transfer market, it must be said, is now led by Premiership clubs flush with TV and foreign owners' cash. Real Madrid are not unique in looking out for the best players and never have been, something that Ferguson conveniently forgets. But hey, he says he's retiring at the end of next season. Maybe he can spend some of his free time reading some history, instead of revising it.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Calderón faces calls for his resignation
In a week where the various international fixtures mean there is little in the way of Liga to talk about, the Madrid sports dailies try to entice punters to buy their wares with a tried-and-tested strategy: transfer talk. Never mind that it's only six weeks since the transfer window closed, As continue to carp on about Benzema and Marca have wheeled out Bernd Schuster to stoke the flames surrounding the future of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Obviously, if you're looking for news items unfavourable to Real Madrid, you need only to look at the Barcelona sports dailies ("Mourinho wants Pepe and Higuaín" - Mundo Deportivo, "Saviola to be asked to leave" - Sport). It is unusual, however, to have an interview with a pro-Real Madrid group in such a publication, except of course, when it's used to air grievances over Ramón Calderon's presidency of the club.
Plataforma Blanca, a group of several hundred Real Madrid socios (members) unhappy with the way the club is run, are headed by Eugenio Martínez, managing director of a PR firm. In the interview, Martínez claims he will demand Calderón's resignation at the next General Assembly:Is reform necessary at the club?
Calderón's management team has shown that it does not have the ability to help Real Madrid evolve. We have to look to the future.
You see yourselves as an alternative at the helm?
We have the desire to be an alternative. Change is in the air.
Some say that Plataforma Blanca is just a front for Florentino [Pérez, former Real Madrid president].
There is nobody behind us. This initiative has come from young, professional, Real Madrid supporters looking to reform the club.
Calderón seems to go from conflict to conflict. Has his presidency really been so bad?
The club's image has been damaged by all those scandals and alleged irregularities. The climate right now is not favourable towards him, as he does no inspire confidence or credibility.
And the socios still don't have the accounts for the last financial year.
It's unbelievable that this late in the year we still have not seen the accounts or that a date has been set for the General Assembly.
Could debt once again threaten the club's survival?
I'm waiting to see the accounts, but by my reckoning, we could be three hundred million euros in debt. That leaves us with negative room to manoeuvre. The ability to generate revenue is smaller than expenditure, so the debt just keeps on growing.
How do you feel about those figures?
We are against approving the accounts. If that happens, it would be the first time in the club's history and the club would be effectively paralysed. A similar situation happened when Ramón Mendoza resigned as president [in 1995]. Ironically, it was Calderón who urged the socios to reject the budget, ending with Mendoza leaving and Lorenzo Sanz becoming president.
So Calderón could go from executioner to executed.
If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
Is Calderón frightened of the socios?
It's understandable, given how they rejected his proposed reforms last May and asked for his resignation.
Will you ask for him to resign?
I will request it at the next Assembly, and if he does not, we'll have to consider a censure motion.
What is needed for a censure motion to succeed?
Half of the members present at the Assembly plus one. If Mr Calderón has any remaining self-respect, he should leave the club.
You have begun a civil suit alleging irregularities in the election of Socios compromisarios.
We are accusing Calderón and his friend Carrascosa of manipulating the database of socios in order to gain control over the Assembly. We do not intend to take the club to court, unlike Calderón himself did over the postal vote.
Is this just a few dissenting voices, or are Plataforma Blanca the tip of the iceberg? According to club rules, Calderón has until the end of December to convene a General Assembly and get the accounts approved, so we won't have long to wait.
Friday, 12 September 2008
Liar, Liar
He's been called President Pinocchio, Tourettes and Motormouth (that last one's mine), but if there has been one person on Ramón Calderón's case since he became Real Madrid president, that is José Antonio Abellán, a journalist and presenter of the popular late-night radio sports programme El Tirachinas. His recent tirades have proved too much for old Ramón and he has decided to take the pesky journo to court for lies and slander.
Abellán has certainly found a rich mine in Calderón's frequent escapades in front of the various media, often without seemingly thinking through what he was going to say first. Early in his presidential stint, Calderón announced that Real Madrid had signed a massive TV contract with Catalan production company Mediapro, but he couldn't get his figures straight. Initially worth 800 million euros, he added an extra 300 million to the sum less than a week later.
The non-transfers of Kaká, Cesc and Cristiano Ronaldo, plus Robinho's move to Manchester City have been covered to death in recent summers, so I won't recap them here, except to say that whatever he says one week, he denies the next, and then he contradicts himself again... and again.
Most recently, and what the president seems to have taken issue with, Abellán has accused him of fiddling the waiting lists of season ticket holders in favour of friends and acquaintances. If and when this goes to court, the thought of Abellán giving evidence must have every journalist in the land slavering at the mouth. I can't wait.
Friday, 22 August 2008
Burning Bridges
He's been unsettled all summer. Who would have guessed that Real Madrid's chasing of Cristiano Ronaldo would have the effect, not of bringing the Portuguese winger to Madrid, but of driving away one of last season's fans' (and the readers of this blog's) favourites?
It's been on the cards since Wagner Ribeiro, Robinho's agent, said last month that the player felt "undervalued" and that there was interest from Chelsea. However, Robinho himself has kept quiet on the issue, at least in public. Until today.
In an interview with Spanish news agency EFE, Robinho has finally said publicly that he wants to leave Real Madrid for Chelsea. In a move calculated to put pressure on the Real Madrid president and board, he will soon have the fans asking for him to leave with statements like:It's not for money. My personal objective is to be the best player in the World and that is not going to happen at Real Madrid. That's why I've set myself the target of playing in the English Premiership next season.
I think my time at Real Madrid is at an end. I hope that the management reaches agreement with Chelsea to resolve my situation as soon as possible.
I've never missed a training session at Real Madrid. I've trained every day and I will continue to do so. Whether I play or not [against Valencia in the Spanish Supercup this Sunday] I don't know, mainly because if I don't have a good game people can say it's because my mind is elsewhere. To avoid those kinds of comments, it's better for Schuster to pick other players.
My message to the fans is thank you for your affection and the way you've treated me.
So now the ball is firmly in Calderón's court. He can keep Robinho at Real against his wishes, but, after such a public statement, neither the fans nor his team mates will be very happy with him in the squad. All of which plays to some extent into Chelsea's hands. Wagner Ribeiro said earlier this week that Real Madrid would be willing to sell Robinho to the London club for €40 million. I wonder if his price has now dropped somewhat.
This blog will be on hiatus for the next two weeks and will return the week before Real Madrid's second league fixture against Numancia.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
The waiting is over... for now
In an interview with Portuguese daily Publico (reproduced in full and translated to English in The Guardian), the Manchester United winger finally declared his desire to "fight and honour the shirt with the same desire and dedication I always have".
It has taken a lot longer than the "couple of days" he needed to sort out his future after Portugal was dumped out of Euro 2008 back in June. This delay, however, was not covered in the questions in the carefully crafted interview. The player now claims he's listened to Alex Ferguson's arguments and has been persuaded to stay at Manchester United. Crucially, Ronaldo says he will be playing at United "next season", rather than any more concrete statements about seeing out his contract. This has fuelled further speculation that there is some sort of understanding between Manchester United and Real Madrid to resume negotiations after the season is over.
Cristiano took the blame upon himself (although "wholly unintentionally") for the tense relationship between the two clubs, and has not ruled out playing for Real Madrid at some point in the future, as he would like a "new challenge" and "the chance of being an hour's flight" from his family in Portugal. What he does not make clear is whether he is now persuaded that Manchester will give him the challenge that he is looking for.
He does not fear the potentially hostile Manchester United fan base on his return to Old Trafford, saying that "people can't be upset about me fulfilling a childhood dream", which is either naive or disingenuous. Given that he's probably out injured until October, tempers may have cooled enough by that time to help ease his way back into the team relatively smoothly.
All this leaves Real Madrid, and especially motormouth president Ramón Calderón, without their summer star signing (for the third year in a row). In and of itself, that is not necessarily a bad thing, as I've argued several times that Ronaldo was perhaps not the best fit, either for squad balance, or from a team-morale perspective. However, the whole saga has unsettled Robinho, who's been asking to be sold to Chelsea to join Scolari's new project there.
On top of that, all of Real Madrid's transfer plans have been dependent on this one huge deal, which have meant very little movement in June and July, other than the signing of Van der Vaart (probably accelerated - and made more expensive - after Schuster's outburst last week). The one silver lining is that there are still over three weeks left of the transfer window, but Calderón has already intimated that there may not be any more signings this summer. I guess this all depends on any players leaving, and the squad looks a little light in the centre forward stakes.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
The "forgotten" star
The authors argue that Kaká could be the signing that both Barcelona and Real Madrid should be looking at this summer. In Barcelona's case, they need a replacement for the recently departed Ronaldinho and they had their chance earlier in the transfer window. Milan don't have the money they once had to invest in renewing their ageing side; they did not qualify for the Champions League. Galliani, president of Milan, was interested in a swap with come of the Barcelona players, but the board was in the middle of getting rid of Rijkaard and replacing him with Guardiola and missed the boat.
Real Madrid, on the other hand, have been putting aside money for the on-off transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo. Kaká is arguably a much better technical fit, as he is and has always been a team player rather than a highly talented individual, but with the vision and skill to replace Guti as the main playmaker. Guti, in contrast, has never had the temperament to provide that vision week in, week out and is also five-and-a-half years older.
For a while last season, Real flirted with moving Gago up to Guti's position, which proved unsuccessful. The Argentine has been good at playing the ball forward to Guti and Sneijder, but he really is no Redondo, though perhaps, at his age, he should be given the benefit of the doubt, and more time to develop.
The figures for the transfer of Kaká are comparable to those being rumoured for Cristiano Ronaldo, possibly even larger. Chelsea are reportedly interested, but then, Chelsea seem to be interested in everybody. The main difference financially between Ronaldo and Kaká is that the Portuguese has been spending his holiday time signing sponsorship deal after sponsorship deal (did you really think he was going to LA for the club scene?). This means that from an image rights perspective, his transfer is much less amortisable that, say, David Beckham's was.
Making the money that Real Madrid made with David Beckham is not possible in these more media-savvy days, but Kaká's image is much more up for grabs. On the personal front, the Brazilian is a committed Christian and family man, a much less likely target for all those scandal-hungry paparazzi.
Will Calderón change course mid-stream and go for Kaká? It's a long shot, but it may be worth considering.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Mijatovic makes a move
The 25-year-old Dutchman, who has a Spanish mother, joined Hamburg from Ajax in 2005 for €5.5 million as midfield playmaker and has since been given the captaincy of their squad. He was instrumental in Hamburg's performance in last season's Bundesliga and has been linked with a number of clubs even before the summer transfer window, among them Chelsea, Inter, Valencia, as well as Real Madrid. Though he signed a 5-year deal with Hamburg, his contract terms state that from the end of the upcoming season, he can leave the club for a "mere" €1 million, hence the upsurge in interest in his services.
The German club's website noted in a brief announcement yesterday evening that they had received and rejected an offer from Real Madrid, as "unworthy of discussion". The value of the offer was then disclosed in German newspaper Die Welt as €6 million, coming in the form of a fax sent to Hamburg Thursday evening by Real Madrid sports director Predrag Mijatovic.
Van der Vaart could potentially be seen as a medium-term replacement for Guti, as he has played alongside Sneijder in that position both at Ajax and in the Dutch national side. The Real Madrid vice-captain, though indisputably talented, suffers from erratic form (and questionable temper) and has finished many of his 14 seasons at the club as a substitute. Nonetheless, he had a pretty regular season under Schuster last year and back in April signed a 'life contract', which saw his previous deal extended until 2011 with an annual renewal clause if he plays 30 games every season.
Hamburg's outright rejection of the offer is seen as a first step in the negotiations between both clubs, who are expected to revisit the matter when they meet in London for the Emirates Cup at the beginning of August.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Cannavaro's last season?
Cannavaro joined Real Madrid from Juventus in 2006 (following the "Moggigate" match-fixing scandal which saw them demoted to Serie B) and signed a three-year contract, which, if he leaves at the end of next June, he will have seen out in its entirety. This is consistent with his recent comments about the Cristiano Ronaldo affair and Sepp Blatter's rather misguided intervention: "slavery is a big word, someone who signs a contract must respect it".
Clearly, there is some wiggle room, and Fedele's comments could be construed as a gentle salvo to Real Madrid about a possible contract extension. While Real have the ready-made replacement of Garay waiting in the wings for next season, it may be prudent to wait and see whether Metzelder, who had a relatively poor European championship following his return from injury, is up to the task. I expect that, barring injury, Pepe will be a regular starter in the centre of defence this season, accompanied by both Cannavaro and Metzelder, depending on form.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Waiting for Cristiano
Ramón Calderón is of a different mind, however, and seems willing to wait, perhaps all summer. To Marca on Saturday he accepted that time is working for Real Madrid and against Manchester United: "theoretically we still have time, two months until the end of August, as long as Manchester United get in touch with Real Madrid to negotiate. Ronaldo said he would like to play for us, that it was his dream to come to Real Madrid, but the player's wishes cannot be realised without Manchester United's agreement".
Calderón seems to be doing the rounds of the media to keep the pressure on United. While in London over the weekend to attend the Wimbledon men's singles final, he replied to a question from The Sun on whether he would put any money on Cristiano joining Real with "I would bet. If a player wants to leave it is difficult to keep him. It is the same for me. If I have a player who wants to go somewhere else, we let them go".
Separately, to As, he gave some hints on what Real's negotiating position vis-à-vis a transfer price for the Portuguese winger would be: "Zidane cost 75 million euros at the age of 29. If Zidane, who was the best player in the World, cost that much in 2001, then it seems logical that for Ronaldo, who is significantly younger, you could now pay 5 or 10 million euros more. That would be fair, wouldn't it?".
The player himself travelled to Amsterdam today to undergo surgery on his ankle. This is expected to keep him out of action for approximately six weeks, which begs the question, why wait that long? Portugal was dumped out of Euro 2008 nearly three weeks ago. Some reports suggest that it was at United's suggestion to delay surgery and see how his condition would develop, but one can't help but speculate whether it was at all influenced by the potential negotiations with Real Madrid.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Robinho looks to Chelsea
Ribeiro then added that he had spoken to Frank Arnesen (Chelsea's chief scout) and two of his advisors by telephone and that they had expressed to him a desire to try to temp Robinho to join the London club. Though he mentioned no figures, the sum of 35 million euros has been doing the rounds of various Spanish and Brazilian media. "Robinho has to return to Madrid on the 14th of July. I will go with him some time before that date, I'm not yet sure when, to see how things will end", Ribeiro concluded.
If Robinho moves to London, he will rejoin former Brazil and Portugal manager "Big Phil" Scolari, who has already secured his first signing for the club in the form of former Barcelona midfielder Deco. Frankly, if the reported numbers are correct, then Real would be crazy to spend more than twice the amount on Cristiano Ronaldo than they are likely to get for Robinho.
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Madridistas in Euro 2008 (IV)
Metzelder (Germany): not many gave Christoph much of a chance against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Nuno Gomes, but, to his credit, he turned in a solid, though not brilliant, performance. His uncharacteristic playacting after someone brushed his face is reprehensible. There was little he could do, however, to stop Nuno Gomes's goal.
Sneijder (Netherlands): his side's best player of the match and, in my opinion, Holland's best player in the whole tournament, he constantly harried and tried to find ways through the organised Russian defence. It was that final pass into space that seemed beyond him and he resorted, unsuccessfully to shooting from outside the area. His cleverly taken free kick found Van Nistelrooy towards the end of normal time and resurrected the Dutch, for a time at least.
Robben (Netherlands): on the substitutes bench, but was not used by Van Basten against Russia.
Ramos (Spain): much better - not yet at his best - but significantly improved from the first two games. He still made a few mistakes, especially in the first half, giving away possession too easily, but he also helped out as centre back when needed (Puyol was just too short to manage Luca Toni in the air).
Monday, 16 June 2008
FIFA rules out action against Real
In their statement, FIFA confirmed that "we received last week a formal complaint from Manchester United related to the player Cristiano Ronaldo and the club Real Madrid. From the documentation received, no breach of contract appears to have occurred yet. Therefore, in accordance with the applicable practice, no kind of formal procedure has been opened by Fifa regarding this matter.
"The Spanish Football Federation has been informed of the complaint lodged by the English club and been asked to remind its member club Real Madrid about the potential legal consequences of a breach of contract without just cause during the protected period and of a possible inducement to such a breach of contract, as established by the Fifa Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players"
Earlier today, sports lawyer Mel Goldberg has argued that even if the complaint prospered, any punishment meted out by FIFA to Real Madrid would likely be minimal. "If Real Madrid are reported to FIFA, they will probably get a rap on the knuckles. I don't know whether they would be expelled from, for example, the European Cup or whether they would be deducted points in the league. What FIFA would probably say is you cannot keep a player against his will if he is not happy and wants to go elsewhere. They would give some minor castigation and the deal would go through.", he said.
As the whole saga unfolds, the ever-unreliable Daily Express reported that Real Madrid is ready to deal directly with Manchester United's owners, the Glazer family and put an offer on the table around the 90 million euro mark (or 50 million plus Robinho, according to Marca). This supposedly has sent Alex Ferguson into a fit of fury with threats of resigning if the owners sell Cristiano without his consent. All this is most likely fantasy, but it was so amusing I just had to put it in.
Monday, 9 June 2008
United rattled by Real
On 27 May, Manchester United made clear its intention to report Real Madrid to FIFA if it continued to involve itself in the future of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Unfortunately, Real Madrid has not kept its own counsel and the Club feels it has no alternative but to make a formal complaint to the world governing body, which it has done today.
The precise content and nature will remain confidential.
FIFA spokesman Pekka Odriozola confirmed the complaint had been made: "it is too early to say how the matter will be dealt with. We will first have to look at the precise nature of the complaint before seeing what steps will be taken."
Though there are few people who doubt that Real Madrid have been "sniffing around" the Portuguese star, it is doubtful whether any complaint to FIFA can be made to stick, as there is unlikely to be anything signed between the player and the club and proving any other type of contact is potentially difficult. However, given that both Manchester United and FIFA are keeping the contents of the complaint confidential at this time, it is possible that evidence that is compelling enough has been unearthed.
Depending on how this pans out, it may spark 'tit for tat' complaints between clubs. Sir Alex Ferguson, for one, has been criticised for his alleged approach of Owen Hargreaves while the player was still under contract at Bayern Munich in 2006, although a transfer was eventually agreed between the two clubs in the summer of 2007.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Robinho Voted Player of the Year
The top three Real Madrid players were:
- Robinho - 65 votes
- Casillas - 62 votes
- Raúl - 53 votes
- September 2007 - Sneijder
- October 2007 - Raúl
- November 2007 - Robinho
- December 2007 - Van Nistelrooy
- January 2008 - Casillas
- February 2008 - Guti
- March 2008 - Robinho
- April 2008 - Raúl
- May 2008 - Higuaín
Of the 25 players in the squad, only three received no votes: Salgado (no surprise there), Codina (who only played one game all season) and Balboa (whose chances were more restricted in the second half of the season, when more votes were cast). The results for the whole squad were:
Continue reading this article »
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Cristiano Crusade
First and foremost, those who stand to profit either way are the press: it's in their interests to keep this going as long as possible, so people can keep buying papers in the lulls between seasons. Expect it to be particularly intense between now and the start of Euro 2008 on 7th June, and to pick up either immediately afterwards (29th June) or as soon as Spain is knocked out of the competition. However, while the press clearly manufacture stories to continue whipping up interest (the one about an official Real Madrid club car with some documents with Cristiano Ronaldo's name on them is particularly clumsy), there would be little to keep this going without the collusion of other characters adding their little bit of fuel to the fire.
The principal suspect in this is Cristiano Ronaldo himself (or his agent). Although he signed a new deal tying him to Manchester United until 2012 just over a year ago, his impressive season (he has scored a whopping 42 goals in all competitions) means he may be trying to capitalise and strike (no pun intended) while the iron is hot. His current deal at United includes an annual salary of over £6 million for the next four years. However, the recent Webster ruling means that he can leave in 2010 by compensating United for one year's salary if he doesn't renew his contract (under the rule, any player aged between 23 and 28 can walk away from his club, as long as he has served three years out of a four or five-year contract). Ale, at The Offside, puts it best with: "Ronaldo, as usual, spent his day frustrating everyone again with claims of 'I dream of playing for Real Madrid' and 'My head is in Manchester.' Just come out with it and say 'I want a new contract or I go to Madrid.' Problem solved."
Let's not forget however, that others may seek to benefit from all this media mayhem. Real Madrid, or to be more precise, president Calderón, has had a bit of a torrid time recently despite being at the helm of a side that's won back-to-back league championships. Add to that the fact that certain sectors won't let him forget that of the three players he promised as part of his electoral campaign two years ago (Robben, Cesc, Kaka), he has only managed to deliver one to Real Madrid. While he mounted an ultimately unsuccessful media offensive for Kaka last year, he may have decided to deflect attention by continuing to feed the press little snippets about how welcome Cristiano would be at Real Madrid.
Finally, and this may be a little bit of a stretch, Manchester United may be using the whole affair to keep the British press occupied while they quietly go about building up their squad for next season. They did well on the transfer market last summer by signing up a couple of highly rated Portuguese youngsters (Nani and Anderson) catching everyone else on the hop. I suspect however, that if this is happening, it's more of a case of taking advantage of the current situation than of the club trying to manipulate events. Alex Ferguson's recent tirade against Real Madrid is just the Scot being his usual prickly self (and there's plenty of non-Manchester supporters saying this is just a case of the pot calling the kettle black).
Ultimately, I believe this is all so much summer hot air. Real don't need Cristiano (certainly not at the prices being quoted) and Cristiano doesn't need Real Madrid: he has just won the Champions League with a relatively young side and would his international profile really be much bigger at the Spanish club? There would probably be more chance of Real launching a ridiculous bid for him if they had not won anything for a couple of seasons or if they were in the middle of presidential elections. As it is, their money would be better spent on reinforcing the squad and offloading some of the underperforming players.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
What might have been
Earlier this week, French sports daily L'Equipe reported that Mijatovic had recently been in the UK to talk to Queiroz about Cristiano. The Real Madrid sports director reportedly put 120 million euros on the table to make him the player to spearhead Real's assault on the Champions League. Queiroz is said to have retorted that "at that price, the striker will be with United next season", which, if the quote is accurate, suggests there is room for negotiation.
Of course, the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has matured into the kind of player everybody wants must owe something to the way Alex Ferguson runs his Manchester United squads. The relative freedom from internal politics and his unchallenged status inside the club means that no player is more important than the squad and internal cliques and dissension are generally quashed before they can take hold. Whether he could have flourished in that way at Real Madrid is something we'll never know.
Ironically, it was Ferguson's intransigence in this regard that eventually led to media maelstrom David Beckham joining the rank of the galácticos at the same time as Queiroz. However, as Queiroz recalls, the seeds of destruction that resulted in three years without a trophy, including his one season at the club (the Spanish Supercup does not count) had already been sown. Real's president, Florentino Pérez, decided that "he knew something about football" and commanded that Makélélé be sold to Chelsea. This was "a criminal error, the president's worst decision. Makélélé wanted to stay. He told me and he told [Jorge] Valdano (then the club's general manager). But, in the president's mind, releasing Makélélé vacated a position in which David Beckham could play. He was worried that, with Makélélé in the team, Beckham would be blocked out. But of course we could have had both."
Queiroz also analyses Real's Zidanes y Pavones strategy: "the policy was to surround the galácticos with players from the academy, the cantera, as much as possible. It was a great idea and could have worked - except that the cantera could not deliver its requirements. The young players were not there. On top of that, the club had let some of the best go the year before - like Samuel Eto'o. He was a Real Madrid player before he went to Barcelona and emerged as world-class. When the season started, I gave an interview to Marca and said that, although it was true Real Madrid was a Ferrari, you could not win a race if the car had no wheels. Sad to say, I was proved right."
