Florentino Pérez, the only candidate in the Madrid elections after Enrique Riquelme gave up

Enrique Riquelme, President of Cox Energy, in November 2019 CLAUDIO ÁLVAREZ

Florentino Pérez is preparing for his sixth term as president of Real Madrid, starting this Monday at midnight (end of the term for presentation of candidacies), after the businessman Enrique Riquelme (Cox, Alicante, 32 years old), the only one who had stated in public his intention to compete, he desisted this Saturday from contesting the elections.

In a note distributed to the media, he says that he does not go ahead “because the reduced deadlines established by the current Board of Directors and the Electoral Board make it impossible to present the full candidacy in which he had been working and ensure a campaign in which he can really explain to all the partners the project ”.

Pérez (Madrid, 74 years old) activated the electoral process on April 1, Holy Thursday, weeks before what he had done on the last two occasions, in which he was the only candidate.

In 2017, the process began on June 8 and in 2013, on May 20.

Sources close to the Madrid board say that this year's European Championship, from June 11 to July 11, made it difficult to carry out the process in June, and that the renovation works at the Bernabéu also required being able to make decisions about the venue as soon as possible.

Sources close to Riquelme, president of photovoltaic Cox Energy, with a strong weight in Latin America, say that the timing of the process has made it difficult to formalize the bank pre-guarantee necessary for the candidacy.

The Sports Law of 1990 and the Royal Decree on Sports Public Limited Companies of 1999 require that the board endorse 15% of the club's budget, a requirement that also applies to FC Barcelona, ​​although with some difference introduced in the respective statutes.

To stand for these Madrid elections, new candidates had to present a pre-guarantee of 123.8 million euros, an amount that results from calculating 15% of the club's budget with amortizations, that is, 825.2 million.

In the case of Pérez, his board did not need to present any pre-guarantee this time, since under his mandate the club has accumulated 399 million euros of benefits since 2009, the period they have been in charge without interruption.

According to LaLiga sources, the regulation establishes a "guarantee compensation mechanism", which means that year after year the benefits are compared with the necessary guarantee and as the profits increase the guarantee is reduced.

And the other way around: losses require increasing it.

It is basically the same mechanism that governs Barça, although with some differences.

The statutes of Madrid, modified in 2012 at the initiative of Pérez, introduced the need for the endorsement to be prior to the presentation of the candidacy (at Barça it is only required after the winner) and for the board to guarantee it with its assets personal (at Barça it is not necessary, and Laporta, for example, is endorsed by entrepreneurs and funds that he did not have to reveal before or after being president).

The other big difference is that Madrid requires 20 years of seniority from the candidate as a partner and Barça, 10. Riquelme has seniority and has ensured that he has the economic resources, but he will not compete this time, but postpones his plan: “Confirm officially his intention to stand for the next elections, "said his note this Saturday, in which he outlined some of the main lines of his plan, such as the creation of Real Madrid America, a team that would participate in the US league (MLS) , "Where the promises of Castilla and the most veteran of the first team can compete."

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