Presidential Election….1 Candidate?

By: Corey | May 21st, 2009

So Ramon Calderon could end up in prison, which means his run for the presidential seat probably will never get off the ground, nor should it. Florentino Perez has declared he is ready to run for the spot, and a whole host of names were reported in the media, but really no one has panned out yet. The major stumbling block seems to be the 50 million euro’s in capital that is required to run for the seat, which seems odd because a candidate should not need to be a millionaire to run, as he does not use his own money to run the club. Need less to say, it seems that the Real board has used that measure as a yard stick of the candidates, and it has weeded out a lot of the pretenders.

Yet it has created a situation where Florentino Perez still looks set to run unopposed as of now. Not exactly what any fan wants to see, even if you want Perez to win. A little competition usually brings out the best in people, or it drums out even more outrageous promises to fulfill.

Juan Onieva has apparently raised the 50 million plus needed to run, so he will be declaring his candidacy today (woops, already did forgot about the time difference), so there is someone to run against Perez, which will force an election to take place. Onieva is still somewhat of an unknown as far as who is included in his platform (he does not have Marca in his corner like Perez does). It is known that he wants to bring Hugo Sanchez on board as coach next season, which does not seem like the best idea in the world given the troubles former great strikers of the early 90’s have had in their coaching roles. Klinsmann and Van Basten, just to name a few. Onieva had this to say about his plans:

“First, that Real Madrid is a sporting entity over 100 years old and we don’t want to stop being one,” said Onieva. “Second, that winning is not enough, we have to win with style.

“And third, that the cornerstone of the project has to be to the members. The members are the end and the beginning of the club.

“We have to get these values back. We need everyone’s contribution with the aim of making Real Madrid greater. We have to recover our principles.”

“I would place the focus on two great columns: players from the youth team and Spanish players.”

Okay thats all good and fair, but how are you going to do it? I will be waiting to hear that before I endorse him or Perez. You may remember that Onieva was vice president of Real from 1995-2000, serving under Lorenzo Sanz, and in that time Real won two Champions Leagues and the league twice. He has the experience and the knowledge of how Real Madrid works, so he looks like the best bet against Perez right now. Whether he can get more support from the media remains to be seen, but his platform is still without candidates for various sporting and technical roles, which I need to see as well.

This will develop as the days go by, and to be honest, its still early as there are still 10 days to declare your running for the presidency. I expect one or two more candidates to flirt with the idea, and hopefully they will go ahead with it. But for now, I only see a Perez victory, despite Onieva’s qualities. It is being reported that Perez is favoring axing Juande Ramos in favor of Michael Laudrup, which as I have said about Onieva wanting Hugo Sanchez, may be a little premature. Bernd Schuster did not exactly pan out like we all wanted him too….

So your thoughts on Onieva or Perez, or the elections in general for that matter.