6 biggest mistakes of Florentino Perez's presidential career at Real Madrid

#2 Flawed Galactico policy

This has been the most notable feature of the Perez era, so much so that the words ‘Galactico’ and ‘Perez’ are seen to go hand in hand. Initially, when it all started off, it wasn’t so bad. Signing one superstar every summer did not have the same connotations that it does today. In his first year in office, in 2000, Perez fulfilled a promise to sign Luis Figo from rivals Barcelona. He was followed by Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo in the next two seasons. Until this point, it seemed things were fine; Real had a superb team that everyone would envy and was the toast of the world. However, it would only last for a short while. Perez’s insistence on buying whoever was considered popular in the market would mean that Los Blancos ended up with a lot of players they did not need, and missed out on many others who would have fit in well.

Before it was termed as the ‘Galactico’ policy, it was first known as the ‘Zidanes y Pavones’ policy. This was after Perez had promised to fill his team with the best attacking talent the world had to offer, while filling in the rest of the positions with players from the Madrid youth team. It didn’t work out. There would be a massive imbalance in the squad, which was creaking under the weight of too many attacking players. Defensive reinforcement lay forgotten and ignored. Perez was once asked by a journalist how he’d form his ideal lineup, and he named a team which had Zidane at centre-back and David Beckham at right-back. When the President finally woke up to the problems, he tried to buy his way out but the players who came were not good enough; Jonathan Woodgate, Thomas Gravesen and Walter Samuel all flopped.

Amidst all this, a number of potential stars passed through the club’s academy, slipping under the radar as they couldn’t fit in among the Galacticos. In this way, Perez and Real Madrid missed out on players like Samuel Eto’o, Juan Mata, Filipe Luis and Juanfran.

Last but not least, there was an allegation that Perez took several transfer decisions based on marketing reasons rather than footballing ones. Claude Makelele claimed that his departure was because of Perez’s belief that he wouldn’t sell shirts. Then there was David Beckham, who Perez preferred to Ronaldinho because he had better looks.