Florentino Pérez's media jungle against Abellán
"Real Madrid is going to come out stronger thanks to people like you and those who have been telling the truth about what was happening at Real Madrid over the years". On 3 June 2009, on José Antonio Abellán's El Tirachinas, Florentino Pérez thanked all those who had helped to oust Ramón Calderón. Everyone: media, journalists, members of Calderón's own board, infiltrators... and Abellán himself, who was the one who uncovered the miseries with which the Madrid lawyer intended to govern the White House.
The few journalists who even today continue to support those years of presidency argue that Calderón became president of Real Madrid using the few weapons he had left. Everything was aimed at having a dolphin of Pérez play the puppet, but the postal vote upset the plans.
Florentino Pérez has used Real Madrid in his defence. This is normal when a president has been at the helm of the world's most important sporting entity for almost two decades. He confuses his private verbiage with the club that belongs to more than 100,000 members. The communiqué where Abellán is publicly exposed already has a very low profile for a club that is not used to wash its miseries in this way. But Real Madrid's communication stepped in the mud when it decided to write a tweet quoting El Transistor (Onda Cero) where a journalist said that Abellán had tried to extort money from white vice-president Eduardo Fernández de Blas in 2011. Precisely the character who most annoyed Abellán and whom he accused of selling out to Pérez in order to sit in the Bernabéu box.
Yet another inanity from Florentino Pérez. A tweet in the morning, on the club's Spanish-language account, giving repercussions to a piece of news that had been told eight hours earlier, with no more garnish than the pure and simple text. It was the tip of the iceberg of the internal mismanagement that the club has been experiencing for some time. Ex-workers of Real Madrid Televisión branded the working model as a "sect", always on the defensive. On the other hand, the workers themselves justify themselves by saying that Real Madrid is hated and they must defend the crest on the club's official TV channel. Although this tweet suggests that from within they want the spotlight to be on Abellán and that journalists close to the president are attacking the Madrid broadcaster.
Journalists Antonio García Ferreras and Antonio Galeano are the president's two most important advisers. The former appears in the audios and is one of the few who does not get an earful. He leads the news coverage of La Sexta, the TV station owned by Grupo Planeta, which also includes media outlets such as Onda Cero and La Razón. In the corridors of the building in San Sebastián de los Reyes, the alleged extortion to be conveniently reported on the nightly radio station spread like wildfire. Galeano gave the order to tweet something out of context to add fuel to the fire.
Abellán called out his audience on La Jungla, which he continues to present every morning on his internet channel. He severely disqualified the press that usually defends Pérez and challenged the white president to a face-to-face to submit to his questions. Abellán flatly denied having leaked the audios. Leaked, not recorded. He knows that the law is on his side because several jurists have already paraded through television and radio programmes commenting that recording a conversation between two people is not a crime when the one recording is one of them. Much less to broadcast it in the press because it is of general interest.
Florentino Pérez has put the case in the hands of his lawyers. A law firm linked to ACS since the time of the Albertos that will try to find any legal loophole to put Abellán in the dock. The case has no chance in the courts. Nor in sport because Pérez is not going to resign. In terms of journalism, it has given many hours of talk shows, the ideological seams of supporters and opponents have been seen. And it will feed the social networks for months because the insults and disqualifications have even amused Madrid supporters and rivals.
Florentino's audios are the toll that the president of Real Madrid has to pay for moving in the sewers. An influential guy who is looking for good contracts for his company and who has been caught in one of many lunches and dinners. The shock was to hear him call Özil a "kiss-ass" and Mourinho and Cristiano "abnormal". No one has spoken out except for Figo, who has said that the matter is settled and that Pérez has apologised to him. Real Madrid continues to give protection to many ex-players and it is not convenient to make enemies with the Superior Being, as Butragueño would say.
There was a sector of madridismo that was waiting for some very specific audios. They wanted to hear from Florentino's mouth what he thinks of the club's members and of the meetings of delegates that he directs with a silk glove. These sounds would have mortally wounded the president because the members are in control of the club and there are many who do not agree with Pérez's sporting policy.
Abellán's toy has been broken. Nobody will be talking about the audios in a few months' time. If justice does not deliver an unprecedented sentence, there will always be an open door for Florentino to return to the jungle.
