Its been quite a while since we successfully beta tested these rants. This edition of Rishay’s Rants will be dedicated to the beautiful on-the-field yet ugly-off-the-field football dictatorship of Real Madrid Club de Futbol. Fascism of the modern day well encapsulated by Franco’s roots embedded in the birth of the club, this team never seems to run out of money despite the Spanish economy defaulting over 15 times in 500 years. Unbelievable stuff.

My qualm with Real Madrid isn’t their footballing style, or on-the-pitch methods. In fact, I have to admit that I occasionally catch myself watching some of their passing combinations and counter-attacking goals from the past few seasons. Who wouldn’t? They always seem to have the best players at their disposal. With their star-studded lineup, it is hard not to respect their team. The immediate product looks good, but let’s look further. Who put all this together? Mr. Florentino Perez. This is where it starts to piss me off.

Aside from your week-to-week crises that seem to be a normal occurrence in terms of tabloids (not going to name any media outlet in particular for fear of starting another crisis), it is the way the club is run that makes me irate. Perez was voted in based on his promises of delivering “La Decima” – the elusive 10th Champions League – to the club as well as building another side full of “Galacticos”, which is just a fancy name for having a fine footballing harem.

Florentino Perez operates with a perpetual shit-eating grin on his face, and I wouldn’t trust this megalomaniac with anything. If you struggled to win La Decima for years and your newly appointed manager wins it in his first season at the club, you should probably not fire him by the end of the following season and then bring in Rafael Benitez. What an insult. What lunacy. The man will make offers of $40+ million for just about anybody who flashes across your TV set, especially in a World Cup summer. Selling Mesut Ozil and Angel Di Maria in consecutive summers despite protestations from your players? Foolish. Paying exorbitant amounts for Illaramendi and Lucas Silva and then never playing them? Despicably self-indulgent. Selling off youth players hither and thither only to buy them back years later after they get the game time to develop? Massively distasteful, not to mention useless economics. Let’s also never forget that he sold Claude Makelele rather than give him a pay rise, in what may have been one of the worst transfer decisions ever made. I mean, it really is up there with Manchester United’s purchase of Massimo Taibi and Arsene Wenger’s faith in Igor Stepanovs.

Perez is an absolute prat, and his regime are a farcical representation of Real Madrid. The success he has achieved is largely down to throwing enough money at each problem that arises, and papering over the cracks in the club’s (lack of) holistic philosophy. The person in charge of footballing decisions should be the manager, not some joker behind the scenes, hobnobbing, shaking hands and drinking gin from a decanter. He’s taken Cristiano Ronaldo away from me and now he looks dead set to take David De Gea, so it’s gotten a bit personal. If Ed Woodward can either keep David or pry away Sergio Ramos then revenge will be very sweet indeed. Somehow I fear, though, that Perez’s particular brand of evil will inevitably win out.

Anyone want to fix Real? Escort Florentino out in a wheelbarrow, dump him in the nearest branch of one of the banks he spends his time sidling up to (allegedly) and find a candidate worthy of leading such an illustrious club.

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