Florentino Perez attacked all the actors in national and European football. The Real Madrid president slammed UEFA, FIFA and La Liga during his speech at a general members’ meeting. The veteran businessman once again highlighted the high costs of watching beautiful sport through various platforms, which he believes is leading to an exponential loss of young fans.

“We have to make television football cheaper. This is nonsense.” charge more than 100 euros and force people to pay 10% of the minimum wage to see it. This is silly. Don’t think about the fans. And, on top of that, offering an increasingly worse product,” emphasized Florentino Perez to loud applause from his partner delegates.

The Real Madrid president’s words sent shockwaves through La Liga’s operators and audiovisual rights holders. Among them Movistar, Orange and Dazn. In addition, the director of the Castellana club once again reminded the president of the football association, Javier Tebas, that he does not do his homework and that every year they are losing subscribers.

Javier Tebas, after finishing his speech, did not hesitate to answer the president of the organization: “I am listening to the speech of Florentino Perez. Besides repeating the same things year after year about youth, subscribers and television, which shows that neither He nor his management team know what is really going on, he adds very serious lies about La Liga,” he wrote in on his official account on the social network X.

The words of Madrid’s top education executive also had a deep impact on Orange and, above all, on Dazn and Movistar, which own the rights to La Liga and have already had more than one diplomatic conflict since this season as a result of broadcasts at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium. Sources in the sector stress that the anger is “enormous” due to the fact that the price to watch all games exceeds 100 euros.

“Florentino Perez is not telling the truth. Football is not worth what he says, because the 100 euros that subscribers usually pay is a converged package from Orange or Movistar,” explain sources close to the two operators. It should be remembered that this type of product is combined with a wide range of offers for fiber optics, fixed and mobile telephony and other television content.

According to various sources in the telecommunications sector, this exchange of statements has led to relations between the various operators and Real Madrid becoming more complex than in recent years. Without going into details, we note that Movistar is one of the main sponsors of the club, which provides communications to the Santiago Bernabeu. The alliance came into being in 2017, when both firms reached an agreement for 15 million euros per year to offer Free Wi-Fi in the white estate.

The voices addressed by this newspaper also regret the words of Florentino Pérez, in which high price for watching football matches on television and remember that “the cost of a live broadcast at the Santiago Bernabeu exceeds 70 euros for 90 minutes.”

Conflict over broadcasts

As previously noted, Movistar and Dazn are also battling Real Madrid for television rights. The white club opposed the new audiovisual regulations approved by La Liga. In that, cameras may have access to locker rooms conversations between coaches during drinking breaks, if any, and interviews with players at the end of the first half or at the restart of the match.

The decision was welcomed by Real Madrid’s coaching staff and some of its players. “If I have to reduce my salary to keep cameras out of the dressing room, I will do it. Changing rooms are something sacred,” White team coach Carlo Ancelotti said at a press conference.

Real Madrid only allows live broadcasts from the stadium seven minutes before kick-off. To save the ballots, both Dazn and Movistar usually set up a makeshift platform in the depths of the field.

The situation was such that during the broadcast of the last match between Real Madrid and Osasuna, Movistar+ decided not to send a single representative to the white fiefdom, and the narration was conducted from the Mediapro headquarters. Carlos Martinez, Bernd Schuster and Axel Torres remained in Barcelona, ​​instead of what they had done in previous matches when La Liga, as usual, set up the court on the outskirts of La Castellana.