An Interesting Idea on Elections

By: Corey | March 24th, 2009

Lets Keep This From Happening Again and Again

Many football fans have long criticized the lack of long term planning that a club like Real Madrid has exhibited recently, along with the laughing stock like atmosphere of the club that is somewhat true, but a lot more tabloid fanaticism then anything. But, there is an issue that must be explored for such a club like Real Madrid: The 4 year cycle of elections, as decided by card holding club members. The past five years, the club has went through four presidents, as one resigned, another was temporary, one (a clown) was elected in a farce of an election on a series of false promises, and now there is a second temporary president. We are now preparing for a new presidential election this summer, a year earlier then it should be occurring, because of the resignation of the aforementioned clown. I will analyze the electoral system and the strengths and weaknesses of such a tradition in this article.

Emilio Butragueno made an interesting series of comments that got me interested on this topic and made me consider a few of the points I will further discuss. Here are his comments:

“We were named the best club of the 20th century due to the trophies won, but also by the way the club behaved. What has happened now is bad for everyone and to say the opposite makes no sense,” he told AS.

“I honestly think that the fans need to push for a change. It is not good that there are elections every four years and that the club has to go through the process of voting.

“If Madrid wants to be the biggest club in the world then the question about which plan is the most suitable has to be asked. Then use that.”

These comments are interesting for so many reasons, most notably the stability issues that the club has experienced recently. Many detractors of Real Madrid have slammed the club for going through ten coaches in ten years, even though Atletico Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona have a similar rate of hiring and firing. It seems that some of the reason for the coaching and even the player turnover at the club is due to the elections of new officials every four years, along with the tumultuous nature of the club members who demand instant results. Club presidents have for the majority of Real’s history lasted a long duration, as evident by this list from Wikpedia:

Name From To
Julián Palacios 1900 6 March 1902
Juan Padrós 6 March 1902 January 1904
Carlos Padrós January 1904 1908
Adolfo Meléndez 1908 July 1916
Pedro Parages July 1916 16 May 1926
Luis de Urquijo 16 May 1926 1930
Luis Usera 1930 31 May 1935
Rafael Sánchez Guerra 31 May 1935 4 August 1936
Adolfo Meléndez 4 August 1936 1940
Santos Peralba 1940 11 September 1943
Santiago Bernabéu Yeste 11 September 1943 2 June 1978
Luis de Carlos September 1978 24 May 1985
Ramón Mendoza 24 May 1985 26 November 1995
Lorenzo Sanz 26 November 1995 16 July 2000
Florentino Pérez 16 July 2000 27 February 2006
Fernando Martín Álvarez 27 February 2006 26 April 2006
Ramón Calderón 2 July 2006 16 January 2009
Vicente Boluda 16 January 2009 July 2009

Face It, You Miss Me Real

Scrapping the election system will benefit the club with long term planning, stability and image issues. Think about how turbulent an organization can be when it has had 4 presidents and countless board members and other management staff turnover in 3 years!!!

Now while the fundamental make-up of the club is down to the club having members who are able to vote on various issues with the club as well as in presidential elections. I will not deny that this is one of the things that makes this club so great, as is the case with several other clubs in Spain that have members. But do you think that it is beneficial in these modern times for angry mobs to decry the president and his management team every time the team looses? Ramon Calderon, while a massive failure for a president, it certainly did not help that every time results were not good on the field, the hankies were out across the stadium.

Here is my idea: keep elections, but lets pull them out longer to 4 or 6 years apart. Keep presidents in office longer so that they have time to put long-term plans in to effect, rather than a rash of signings each mercato. We also need to look in to giving coaches more time to put their plans in to effect, because discussing how many coaches we have had in the past 10 years is a whole other topic of discussion. If presidents were not judged by the coaches they hired, but more on their financial performance first, and left the technical decisions to the respective staff, we might see more long term coaches. Del Bosque, the last “long term” coach we had,

So we extend the time that the management and coaching staff have to operate. But then we need to give the culture and attitude of the fans a shock. Real Madrid fans have alot of expectations, usually fairly unrealistic, and if their expectations are not met, they turn very quickly on who ever is in charge. But this has become a hall mark of modern football, as even some of the smaller clubs have gone through tumultuous periods of hiring and firing coaches and player turnover rates through the roof. Stability it seems, once a landmark of any football club, and almost an afterthought in the notion of a great club, is now a goal that many a club president tries to achieve only to go about destroying such notions of stability through self-defeating actions. The fans will provide the main catalyst to stability within a club by showing the team patience, and thus the management will do the same. 99% of the time, management errors are made because of the intense pressure exerted on them by the fans and the media.

That is also a very important thing to suggest. The media, especially publications like AS and Marca, have been exercising a greater degree of influence over the club in recent times for no explainable reason. Minimizing their influence, which is often populist and poisonous to the extreme if their wims are not met, would be a key to stabilizing the club. Media and fan pressure through over heightened expectations would bring about more stability inside the stadium during match days, where a few bad plays would not immediately result in a wall of booing and proclamations of “crisis” by the media the next day.

So now we have an adjustment in the attitudes of the fans and media, which coupled with the extended ability of the management of the team to plan long term, would bring a greater stability to the organization as a whole. But the final piece of the puzzle would be to really analyze the management itself. First off, why is the head coach not completely in control of transfer decisions? Why are his suggested players not pursued by Pedja Mijaotivc, instead of the president, technical director and Pedja (what is his role title anyways?) deciding who they want and then letting the coach work with it? Head coaches should decide the players they need, then in committee with the technical directors and president pursue a strategy to get those players.

Second, why is the management of the club completely ignoring the vast junior divisions or cantera of the club, even though its one of the biggest expenses the clubs faces year to year? Developing players for 8-12 years is a costly endeavor, but if not one of a class of 30 footballers is going to make it to the first team each year, is it not a failed experiment worth analyzing? Question have been raised recently over the judgment of the management in deciding whether cantera players are good enough for Real’s first team. Several have been sold to La Liga teams or abroad only to become leading lights for their teams, or play in the Champions League season in season out, or become Spanish internationals. A refocus on the development of youth in the club for the purpose of them becoming professionals with the club should be enacted by the management.

Third, why is it that my beloved club is dragged through the mud everyday by the media? It seems like once a week there is some new gripe with Real Madrid. We need a better PR department and stronger marketing devices beyond buying players. Think of how enamored the British press is with their own clubs. Manchester United can do no wrong in the eyes of the British sports media, and they project that across the world, while the British press slams other European clubs on a continuous basis, which is just how they are. But the Spanish sports media is always going after Spanish clubs and hardly concerns itself with how it projects Spanish football to other areas of the world, especially other European countries. Better PR is needed to re-establish the club has one of the best in the world, besides better on field performances.

And finally. And this is key. Why dont the voters in presidential elections pay more attention to what the candidates have to offer besides the “star players” they promise to sign but will most likely never get. A la Calderon, it seems a bit pointless to elect a man that promises three players who could each fetch a transfer fee equivalent to a third world countries GDP, but then lie, cheat and steal to his hearts content. If you want to vote for Florentino Perez, you should demand that you know more then just whether he wants to sign Kaka and Ronaldo to create every 13 year olds dream Football Manager team. Get hard facts on his plan for the re-development of some of the clubs property associated with Valdebabas, or the economic stability of the club in the global financial crisis. Maybe even who he sees as his technical staff, or how he view the use of the youth team beyond the very cliche “its a fundamental part of the club”. Demand more information from presidential candidates so that you can make an informed decision.

So thats my plan, it really tries to look at reforming the election process in order to bring more stability to the club internally, but I also suggest that fans and media alike re-adjust their expectations and attitude towards the club as a further addition of stability. Let me know what you think.

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