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Meet The Biggest Spender In Sports
Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid soccer club, will accept nothing short of the biggest, brashest and best soccer club that money can buy.
And therein lies the problem for this self-made billionaire. While Real Madrid fans are enjoying the Champions League with new hope and a bevy of top-dollar superstars, critics are accusing Mr. Perez of ruining the sport. European soccer's governing body, UEFA, ratified a plan this month to stop clubs from buying 'success on credit' and amassing huge debts. An even harsher accusation -- of 'financial doping' -- comes from Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who Real Madrid also tried to woo.
Even many Spaniards think it's obscene to spend so much money on players at a time when the country's economy is deep in recession, with nearly 1 in 5 people unemployed.
In a rare interview, Mr. Perez justifies his massive outlays for on-field talent. 'We've given people hope and expectation at a time of economic depression,' he said from the Madrid headquarters of Grupo ACS, his construction company. 'The only thing some people have to look forward to is their Real Madrid.'
Perhaps no other man has contributed so much to making soccer the big-money sport it is today. And Real Madrid fans are eager to see Mr. Perez bring the mojo back to this iconic club. A Spanish newspaper pictured him as Moses, the sea parting beneath his feet. Indeed, the club's resurgence would mirror Mr. Perez's own rise.
Unlike much of Spain's business elite, which is dominated by wealthy clans, he worked his way up. The construction company he presides over employs 145,000 people worldwide and got rich building highways, homes and high-speed trains. Currently, he's listed by Forbes as being worth $1.8 billion.
Since his election in June, Mr. Perez spent roughly $433 million to acquire the rights to superstars Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xabi Alonso and Karim Benzema.
The off-season spending spree has been compared to the one the Yankees embarked on after last season, when they committed $423 million to C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Texeira over the next eight years. However, the Yankees outlay represents all costs. On top of the $433 million Mr. Perez paid for the rights to those players, he also must pay their salaries. Mr. Ronaldo has a six-year contract worth $174 million. The contracts for the other stars are worth tens of millions more.
It wasn't the first time Mr. Perez has stunned the soccer world with astronomical salaries. During his first term as president of Real Madrid, from 2000 to 2006, he assembled a team of so-called galacticos -- or superstars -- including David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Brazil's Ronaldo. This lineup helped turn around the club's economic fortunes. Today it has the largest annual revenues of any soccer club, according to Deloitte & Touche -- some $538.1 million.
Critics say he'll never recoup the cost of the players and accuse him of loading up the club with debt. At the club's general assembly on Saturday, Mr. Perez said its debt load would rise to $480.8 million.
But he isn't throttling back his ambitions: He announced an upgrade of the Bernabeu stadium and the construction of a Disney-style theme park at the club's training grounds in Madrid.
'You invest, just like you do at a big company,' he said, comparing top players to a sort of oversize tunneling machines he buys at his construction company.
