With only one match left to conclude the second consecutive season without titles, Real Madrid's current affairs are not revolving around lineups, tactics, or sporting planning. The attention is focused on what could be the first electoral event to preside over the entity in two decades.
Ahead of schedule and to everyone's surprise, Florentino Pérez decided to press the nuclear button and encouraged aspirants to step forward. He even pointed them out, though without naming names. "There are some kids who are saying they want to run. Let them run." Who are these kids? Who is "that gentleman who talks to the electric companies and has a... Mexican accent"? Well, it's no secret because there have been many profiles of them these days.
It's time to sketch a power map of the 'game of thrones' – although the more appropriate reference would be 'Succession' – that is looming in Chamartín. The companies and spheres of influence of the contenders. And to put names to them, although that's no longer Demócrata's job, but rather how they are known on Real Madrid Twitter, the collective chronicler of the team and the club's first and most acidic critic of its misadventures.
THE ELECTRICIANS
The "kids"
The nickname is the work of one of the club's 'insider' accounts, RealSeason, close or very close to the current Board. Enrique Riquelme (Cox, Alicante, 1989) heads the candidacy. He began his career as an entrepreneur in Latin America and later founded a company he named after the town where he was born: Cox Energy, with investments in energy, infrastructure, and water. With it, he absorbed Abengoa's assets in 2023 and has just acquired all of Iberdrola's remaining business in Mexico for 4 billion dollars.
The other "kid" is none other than David Mesonero (Salamanca, 1980), with whom Riquelme precisely closed the deal to buy Iberdrola's Mexican assets. Mesonero is the Director of Corporate Development for the Spanish energy company, their man for operations, mergers, and acquisitions. He played a key role in the merger of Gamesa and Siemens. He is now vice-president of the firm with which Iberdrola wants to develop large-scale data centers.
It's easy to draw the dotted line between them. Young, ambitious, successful. Sharks of a new generation, in contrast to the world of another era that the current Board of Directors may represent. The picture, in any case, would not be complete. There is more electricity.
The shadow of an old enemy
Mesonero is the son-in-law of the president of his company, Ignacio Sánchez Galán. Who, by twists of fate, has maintained a business and personal feud with the president of Madrid for two decades.
Twenty years ago, they fought a battle for control of Iberdrola, through Unión Fenosa, in which ACS participated. Sánchez Galán closed the doors of the Board of Directors to him, despite having almost 20% of the shareholding. Florentino Pérez eventually withdrew, but the war continued in the courts.
The president of Iberdrola was even indicted for bribery, invasion of privacy, and document forgery in one of the ramifications of the ‘Villarejo case’. Sánchez Galán allegedly hired the former commissioner to prevent ACS's assault on the energy company. The case was dismissed as the acts were considered to have prescribed.
The shadow of Sánchez Galán, an old enemy, and Mesonero's past at Grupo Prisa, where he was chief financial officer, are enough to set off alarms in the environment.
The Pozuelo Circle
The others come from Pozuelo de Alarcón, the epicenter of a circle of friends in which Ángel Martín, owner of Clínica Menorca and a friend of Riquelme, plays an important role, and which also includes former Real Madrid footballers –all Spanish, by the way— such as Iker Casillas, Miguel Torres, or Fernando Sanz, who, along with Sergio Ramos, were invited to the young candidate's last birthday.
Martín, incidentally, is a well-known friend of Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, CEO of Atlético de Madrid –and owner of the club until its recent purchase by the Apollo fund—. A circumstance that Florentino Pérez himself took advantage of to launch a jab in his famous press conference, pointing out Gil Marín's enrichment from the sale of the club, which his father fraudulently appropriated years ago, as ruled by the Audiencia Nacional and the Supreme Court.
Another guest at the birthday who has also been linked to Riquelme's candidacy is Rosauro Varo, president of GAT Inversiones, a company he founded before turning twenty and through which he invests in sectors such as tourism, hospitality, and real estate. The son of an MEP from the PSOE, he is one of the main shareholders of Cabify.
The PRISA connection also comes in there, being vice-president and counselor of the group until 2023, when he left his positions to be vice-president of Movistar+ and join the advisory board of Telefónica España, positions from which he resigned at the end of last year.
Other partners of Riquelme, through Cox, are Ignacio Maluquer, owner of Starlite, a music festival based in Marbella, and Alberto Zardoya, current vice-president and shareholder director of Cox. Among its companies is Zardoya Otis, a renowned company for the manufacture, installation, and maintenance of escalators and elevators.
THE ‘DINOBOARD’
A few weeks ago, a video went viral that reviewed the profiles of the Real Madrid Board of Directors one by one, emphasizing their advanced age. As a curiosity, that ‘scroll’ reviewing the photographs of the Board members is no longer possible.
But neither the high average age nor the mockery about it is new. For example, the celebration of the much-loved Seventh European Cup in 1998. The Board of Directors, then chaired by Lorenzo Sanz, taking to the field was accompanied by the music of Jurassic Park.
https://x.com/yipikayei7/status/1381896706078470144?s=20
Sanz would lose two years later to Florentino Pérez, shortly after winning another European Cup – the Eighth, in Paris against Valencia — and thirty years later the concept ‘dinojunta’ is ‘vox populi’ on Real Madrid Twitter.
A rude yet affectionate nickname, which ironically refers to the institutional and old-fashioned profile of the club's management, which has even been compared on social media to the conclave of the ents from The Lord of the Rings. Meme material, yes, but watch out for the ents when they get going.
https://x.com/Garabatxs/status/2053734024569372875
ACS Seal
Florentino Pérez needs little introduction. He presides over a global construction giant, ACS, which includes subsidiaries such as Hotchfield or Dragados and participates in companies such as Abertis and Clece. Last year, it approached 50 billion euros in revenue, and its project portfolio is close to 93 billion in future contracts.
Several key figures in the construction company accompany Pérez on the Board, such as Pedro López Jiménez, vice-president of the construction company, Manuel Redondo, the president's ‘man of all work’, José Luis del Valle – legal advisor in the government of the construction company and the club — or Catalina Miñarro.
The only woman on the Board of Directors is a State Attorney and has served in the Court of Auditors, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, Paradores, SEPI, and the Community of Madrid. She was vice-president of Mapfre, from whose board she left at the end of last year for exhausting her three terms as an independent director.
Also on the Board is Florentino's own brother, Enrique Pérez, who has served as inspiration as a possible author or inspiration for the publications of the aforementioned Sison account.
Other businessmen and directors on the Board are Enrique Sánchez González, executive president of Sagital (private security), Manuel Cerezo Velázquez, owner of Excavaciones y Transportes Cerezo, and Nicolás Martín-Sanz, businessman in the automotive and transport sector, owner of Opel and BMW dealerships.
A dark horse for succession?
Francisco Javier García Sanz deserves special mention, with whom there has been speculation about a possible succession of Pérez. He is not among the most veteran members of the Board and his career is that of a successful executive in the automotive world, with a long career abroad, mainly at Volkswagen.
He has been president of the automotive employers' association Anfac and of the German football team Wolfsburg, a shareholder director of VidaCaixa, of Indra in the stage of Marc Murtra until 2025, and non-executive president of Tubacex. He is an independent director of Acerinox.
Two men and one destiny
A key man in the recent history and governance of the club is José Ángel Sánchez (JAS), who arrived at the club with Florentino in 2000 and has continued in it uninterruptedly – also under the mandate of Ramón Calderón. His history is not read in Ibex terms but few can boast of more power and knowledge of the club than him.
The other strong man is Aras Laghrari, outside the Board of Directors but one of the most influential advisors to the white president and to whom many eyes point as a possible successor or, at the very least, a relevant role in the immediate future of the club.
He is the son of a former partner of Pérez in Morocco. Trained in financial mathematics in France, Laghrari is a banker specializing in markets. He worked first at Societé Générale and then at Key Capital, as a financial advisor to banks and large companies, including ACS.
In recent years he has played a key role in driving the Super League and in the renovation of structures in the basketball section, which also aims for a revolution of the European competition with an eye on the NBA.