Florentino Pérez has said he’ll announce Real Madrid‘s “first big signing for next season” on Thursday as the club’s presidential election campaign enters its final days.
Club members will vote on Sunday in Madrid’s first contested elections in 20 years, choosing between incumbent Pérez, 79, and businessman Enrique Riquelme, 37.
ESPN reported on Tuesday that Madrid were close to reaching an agreement with defender Ibrahima Konaté, who has left Liverpool and is now a free agent.
Riquelme said this week that club legend Raúl González would be his sporting director if he wins Sunday’s ballot, while he has also said Manchester City midfielder Rodri is “the kind of player who has to play for Real Madrid.”
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“This Thursday I’ll announce my first big signing for next season,” Pérez said in an interview with the newspaper El Espanyol. “Everyone knows my sporting project: having the best players, and carrying on winning.”
Pérez wouldn’t confirm reports — including from ESPN — that José Mourinho has agreed to return to Madrid as coach, having previously been in charge between 2010 and 2013.
“Soon I’ll announce who Real Madrid’s new coach will be,” Pérez said. “We’ll have more names before Sunday, don’t worry.”
Pérez led Madrid between 2000 and 2006, and again from 2009 until the present day, having been elected unopposed in the club’s last five electoral cycles.
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Opponent Riquelme has criticised Pérez’s stated plan to sell five per cent of Madrid — which has always been a sports club, owned by its members, rather than a limited company — to an external investor.
“With me, Madrid will always belong to its members,” Pérez said on Wednesday. “I want the members to be the owners of [the club’s] financial wealth. At the moment we’re just owners of an emotional wealth. I want to strengthen that link, and for it to go beyond death, so that the financial wealth can be inherited by your children or your family.
“We’ll look at the way to do it, we’ll debate it and it will be voted on in a referendum of all members.”
