Real Madrid is brewing a drastic change, is Tebas being used as a weapon by Lafayette?

At the just-concluded Real Madrid membership meeting, Florentino opened fire on Tebas, which aroused heated discussion in the public opinion. Using the smoke of this war of words as cover, the galactic battleship is sailing towards an unfamiliar channel.

Florentino revealed the club's equity sale plan in the report. Real Madrid will use no more than 10% of its shares to attract foreign investment, maintain the membership model, and seek greater development space.

[The tide of the times is turbulent, Real Madrid is being coerced]

As a model of membership-based clubs, Real Madrid has the tradition of "member-owned and member-governed", which not only allows them to firmly grasp the basic base of local fans, but also gains countless fans around the world. Thanks to the excellent operations of the Bernabeu and Florentino, Real Madrid has polished its golden name with outstanding competitive results and has long enjoyed the reputation of being the world's number one football club.

With the injection of capital from North America and the Middle East, the European football landscape has changed, and Real Madrid has felt a strong impact from the Premier League giants. After the decline of Serie A, La Liga and the Premier League competed for the title of "First League". The balance of power between the two sides has shifted dramatically in recent years.

Relying on the revenue model of dividing gold and silver and the relatively loose supervision model, the Premier League's brand value and social influence continue to soar. The current overseas broadcast revenue has been three times that of La Liga. The league bonus income of the bottom team has reached the level of the "Western Super League" group, and the commercial sponsorship contracts of each team are astronomical. Professional players from the North American sports world have also made outstanding achievements in business development. In the 2024 Deloitte club revenue rankings, there were 9 Premier League teams "encircling and suppressing" 3 La Liga teams.

Real Madrid's reconstruction may seem aggressive, but in fact it only meets the investment standards for newly promoted Premier League teams.

Relying on their strong financial resources, Premier League teams dominate the transfer market. This past summer window, the arms race led by Big6 was unprecedentedly intense. The summer window signing record set by Galaxy Battleship was continuously refreshed. Alonso shouldered the task of reconstruction, and ultimately received only 167 million euros of investment. This signing was not even as strong as Sunderland, the newly promoted Premier League team. The flaws in the lineup left over from Ancelotti's tenure have not been fully repaired, and Real Madrid is still having a very difficult time under Alonso.

There is a clear gap between Spain and the United Kingdom in terms of population size, economic size, and international influence. La Liga was already in a very disadvantageous position, and foreign investment's favor for the Premier League has further widened the gap between the two sides. For a long time, Real Madrid and Barcelona have relied on their own influence to get a bigger piece of the cake, and the living space of small and medium-sized teams in La Liga has been limited. After Tebas became the head of La Liga, he tightened the access rules and adjusted the TV broadcast sharing ratio, tilting resources to small and medium-sized teams at the expense of Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​which intensified the financial burden of the two giants.

Laporta leverages financial leverage to relieve pressure, while Florentino hopes to seek long-term stability by changing the club's ownership structure. Just before Florentino made his decision, the Madrid area had been fully penetrated by foreign capital.

Atletico Madrid has taken the lead in completing the "change of flag". There is no reason for Real Madrid not to take this decisive step.

The acquisition negotiations between Getafe and Fenway Group lasted for nearly a year. Although they failed to take shape in the end, this suburban club has opened its arms to foreign investment. It is only a matter of time before it changes its banner in the future. Atletico Madrid's actions are cleaner and cleaner. They have joined Apollo Sports' global map and the club will enter a new era defined by "capital discipline". Real Madrid has strong financial resources, but it is still unable to remain immune to the impact of this wave of trends. The advancement of the "European Super League" plan has been blocked, leaving Florentino with few options.

[Tough Times, Home Alone]

Before 2020, Real Madrid had recorded operating cash of more than 110 million euros for many consecutive years, and its net profit could basically be maintained at more than 30 million euros. In the years when funds were abundant, Florentino spent money lavishly. The lineup configurations under Ancelotti and Zidane were all top European standards. The situation when relying on the "AB team" to win the double championship (in the 2016/17 season) was impressive.

In order to save money by signing famous players without signing them, Florentino's operation offended his colleagues who were planning the "European Super League" together.

After the black swan incident occurred in the public health field, Real Madrid's revenue and profits were affected. Florentino relieved the pressure by selling players and controlling salaries, ensuring financial health while promoting the Bernabeu renovation plan. As a member club, Real Madrid has no shareholders who can continue to provide blood, and can only reduce signing expenditures during difficult times. Not only is Alonso unable to reunite with his old team from the Leverkusen period, but he also has to sit back and watch Suvemendi, Walter Mader and others being intercepted by Premier League teams.

In the past few seasons, Barcelona has encountered difficulties in registering players, and made many jokes due to insufficient funds when signing up. In the end, it relied on the rise of the new generation of La Masia to maintain its competitiveness. Now it is time for Real Madrid to rely on young players to support the scene.

During his "second career", Florentino upgraded the "Zidane + Pavin" policy of the year. The core framework composed of stars was more balanced, and the "admission" of local young players was more stringent. During the years when Ancelotti and Zidane took over alternately, Florentino never gave up on local youth training. Even if Benitez and Lopetegui's coaching ended hastily, he was willing to continue to give trust to local coaches. This gave Real Madrid a lot of room for maneuver in difficult times..

Alonso reused Gonzalo Garcia, Guler and Fran Garcia during the Club World Cup. Since the new season, he has focused on supporting Heizen and Mastantuono. Considering that Juan Martinez and Thiago Pitachi are expected to enter the first team, and Nico Paz and Chema Andres are about to return, the scale of this youth army will continue to expand. Surrounded by meritorious players such as Vinicius and Rudiger, Real Madrid's young people are eager to write a new chapter. The club's "crisis" is their opportunity.

[Public opinion war attracts firepower, big moves are carried out quietly]

As early as the season when Ancelotti led the team to win the "Double" for the first time, Florentino had plans to sell the club's equity, but he waited until Real Madrid's valuation reached 10 billion euros, revenue exceeded 1 billion euros, and net assets approached the 600 million euro mark before he pressed the start button of reform. This season, Real Madrid's revenue reached 1.185 billion euros, an increase of more than 10%, reaching the level of first-class NFL and NBA clubs, which allows them to attract very significant investors.

The focus of American capital is on the Premier League. La Liga is still unexplored territory. This is an opportunity for Real Madrid.

Real Madrid is moving closer to Bayern Munich's ownership model. The Bundesliga has a "50+1" policy as a guarantee. Florentino also drew a red line for this share reform, that is, most of the equity will still be held by members, and only a small amount will be opened to investors. This move can not only enhance the vitality of the club, but also better achieve financing and reverse the recent passive situation at the transfer level.

There are rumors that Sixth Street Capital and LVMH Group have been impressed by Florentino's plan. The former has demonstrated professionalism during his participation in Barcelona's "Leverage Action", and the latter has accumulated experience in operating a football club when reshaping Paris FC, making him an ideal partner for Los Blancos.

Florentino elaborated on Real Madrid's new direction in the chairman's report. Since no special meeting was held for this proposal, this general meeting did not vote on it. Before formally promoting the shareholding reform in the future, Real Madrid will hold a special general meeting to authorize a referendum. It must obtain the support of more than half of its members (50,000 people) before it can enter the process.

Florentino is far-sighted, but not all members understand his good intentions, and there are also many people who worry that Real Madrid will be "privatized" in the future. Florentino used a lot of space in the report to criticize Tebas. It seems that it should not be the work of a business veteran, but the chairman of Real Madrid wants to use such an extreme way to remind members that this battle without gunpowder has begun, and the Galaxy battleship must be upgraded to cope with future competition and challenges.