Going, going... gone

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.

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First round to Calderón

Those who had predicted that Ramón Calderón would shortly be forced to resign his presidency of Real Madrid had their hopes quashed by a judge today. But the situation is as complex as some of the legalese employed by all the parties involved.

It was a day of judgements: earlier in the day, the Audiencia Nacional partially ruled in favour of presidential hopeful Juan Miguel Villar Mir in that the postal vote should be counted in order to safeguard the democratic rights of Real Madrid members. However, this judgement was linked to a second trial on the validity of the Real Madrid electoral process and therefore the postponement of the count itself was maintained until the result of that trial was known. This judgement cannot be appealed and therefore this matter is now at an end.

The second trial made its decision known within minutes of the first and gave Ramón Calderón a significant boost in his quest to remain as Real Madrid president. The judge ruled that rule 15 of the Real Madrid statutes (relating to the postal vote) was invalid, and by extension, the votes themselves (all 10,511 of them) were invalid and should not count towards the election of a president.

Calderón had argued that rule 15 implied a "lack of guarantee of the democratic principles required for a postal vote, in that it did not fulfil the requirement that the vote be personal, direct, secret and that it cannot be delegated on another person" (see what I mean by legalese?).

The judgement can be appealed, and indeed two of the former candidates (Villar Mir himself, and Arturo Baldasano) have already announced they will appeal the decision. However, this decision to continue dragging the club through the courts is likely to take several months, giving Calderón time to potentially call new elections (on his own terms).

It's a shame that the Real Madrid membership did not see fit to modify the regulation at the recent AGM, seeing as it's clearly unfit for a so-called democratic institution.

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The beginning of the end for Calderón?

To anyone who's confused surrounding the legal shenanigans at Real Madrid, join the throng.

Aside from the hearing set for next Monday, in which a judge will rule on the suspension of the postal vote for the club's presidential elections last summer, a separate judgement is expected in the next few days from the Audiencia Nacional on whether it was justified by the judge in the first trial to suspend the postal vote recount. This appeal was brought by Juan Miguel Villar Mir, one of the presidential candidates.

Confused? So am I. It seems that if Calderón wins the first round next Monday, there's still this other judgement (from a higher court) to contend with.

But that's not the end of the story, there are also criminal proceedings brought by Ramón Calderón related to the alleged falsification of postal votes. As far as I can tell, no date has been set for these to come to trial.

I have no idea where all of this is going or even how long it will take. All I know is that it reflects very poorly on the club and on those who would run it. Perhaps new elections are really the only way forward.

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Will the Real president please stand up?

Juan Miguel Villar Mir, failed candidate to the presidency of Real Madrid in last summer's elections claimed today that he expects to be declared the winner in "a few weeks or days", once he wins his legal appeal to have the postal vote included.

Villar Mir was vice-president of Real Madrid under the late Ramón Mendoza in the mid-90s and had Carlos Sainz, twice World Rally Champion, as his second-in command during the election.

The Real Madrid elections generated a great deal of controversy over the postal vote, with large question marks over the way it was administered. Many Real Madrid members have complained that their name appears in the list of those who voted by post even though they did not do so, and actually voted in person. The postal vote was annulled by a judge after complaints from some of the candidates

The final decision on what to do with the postal vote is with the judiciary, although any outcome which overturns the result of the election would be hard fought by the eventual winner (counting votes which were cast in person), Ramón Calderón.

It is a strange parallel to the US presidential election in 2000 which was finally decided in the courts (though that was mostly about 'chads' and the voters' intentions, rather than the postal vote). It is shameful that Real Madrid should have conducted their elections in this manner, with no guarantees as to the legitimacy of the election process, and it is essential that the current incumbent changes the rules so this cannot be repeated once again.

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