Real Madrid will “sign” Erling Haaland and Rodri from Manchester City. That’s what Enrique Riquelme is claiming anyway.
Riquelme is going up against long-serving 79-year-old Madrid president Florentino Perez in an election for the role on Sunday. It will be the first time Perez has faced a rival since 2004.
The 37-year-old renewable energy entrepreneur made these claims on El Hormiguero (The Ant Hill) on Wednesday night, a popular Spanish TV talk show on Antena 3. It was his big play to the 100,000 or so Madrid members eligible to vote — and shortly after the programme started, Perez’s campaign posted a call to arms of their own, fronted by Jose Mourinho.
Riquelme appeared surprised when he was told of this development. “He’s a good manager, but the profile for our project is of a totally different style,” he said.
“I don’t like Mourinho for my project, I’ve got another manager (lined up). I can’t tell you the name, but I will on Friday or Saturday. Give me a couple more days.”
Riquelme then watched on as host Pablo Matos finally held up the Real Madrid shirt that had been folded on the desk in front of him with the name on the back obscured. The whole show had been billed around this big reveal. It was Haaland with the number nine.
Riquelme shows off his big-name promise for Real Madrid (Antena 3)
“Haaland has a release clause and wants to join Real Madrid,” Riquelme said. The Athletic has contacted the player’s representatives and City for comment.
Riquelme then signed what he said was a legal document committing him to the following promise.
He said: “I have signed a personal notarised guarantee, in which I undertake to pay 100 per cent of the membership fees for all of Real Madrid’s 100,000 members next season, should I fail to deliver.”
Riquelme had already announced former Madrid players Raul and Fernando Hierro as his future sporting director and head of youth academy earlier on Wednesday, while on Saturday he told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope: “If I’m Real Madrid president, a player like Rodri will play for Real Madrid.” He repeated that claim again, also saying that City should be “respected”.
So what’s going on here? And how much should we believe?
The Figo factor: How seriously should we take this?
Madrid are one of four Spanish football clubs that are still member-owned, along with Barcelona, Athletic Club and Osasuna. The presidents of these clubs are elected in a vote.
When elections come around, candidates often try to gain attention and support with promises of big-name signings or appointments.
Perez knows this game extremely well, having pulled off the most audacious campaign promise in Spanish football history when he was first elected to the Madrid presidency in July 2000.
His chances of success looked slim. Under Lorenzo Sanz, Madrid had won another Champions League just two months before, adding to the title he oversaw in 1998.
Perez knew he needed something special — and he made a huge splash by promising to sign Figo from Madrid’s Clasico rivals Barcelona. Sanz’s reaction was to joke: “Maybe Florentino will announce that he’s signed Claudia Schiffer next,” adding: “Our members aren’t stupid.”
Just like Riquelme on Wednesday, Perez doubled down on his promise by pledging to personally pay for members’ season tickets if he was elected and Figo did not join. It worked. Perez won by 16,469 votes to 13,302 — and Figo arrived in one of the most dramatic transfers in football history.
Three years after Perez’s Figo gambit, another ambitious challenger was voted in at Barcelona following a similarly dramatic promise — but this time it was not fulfilled.
Charismatic lawyer Joan Laporta announced he had an agreement to sign David Beckham from Manchester United, and the Premier League club confirmed an offer of £30million had been accepted.
It helped Laporta easily beat Lluis Bassat by 27,318 votes to 16,412, despite his rival’s support from important Barca figures including Pep Guardiola, who had agreed to be his sporting director.
Laporta’s campaign promise was quickly forgotten, with Brazilian attacker Ronaldinho his first major signing as Barca president. In the end, Beckham did move to La Liga that summer — but to join Perez and Figo at Madrid instead.
Beckham pictured at his Real Madrid unveiling alongside Perez in July 2003 (Real Madrid/Getty Images)
Perez won another term at Madrid in 2004 before stepping down two years later. He returned in 2009 and has not faced a rival since, standing unopposed in the past five presidential elections at the Bernabeu. The most recent actual vote for the role came way back in 2006, and was won by Ramon Calderon.
He promised members a ticket of former Madrid forward Predrag Mijatovic as sporting director, Fabio Capello as coach and Kaka, Cesc Fabregas and Arjen Robben as major signings.
Mijatovic and Capello were immediately appointed, but the big-name players who moved to the Bernabeu that summer were Ruud van Nistelrooy, Fabio Canavaro and Jose Antonio Reyes.
Juan Palacios, who lost out to Calderon by a few hundred votes, had actually promised to bring in Reyes, also targeting Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney. Robben eventually joined Madrid in 2007, with Kaka signing after Perez returned in 2009.
The election held at Barcelona in March this year provides another example of this strategy — and how it can fall flat.
Catalan fintech entrepreneur Victor Font rivalled Laporta and claimed he had negotiated right of first refusal over signing Haaland from Manchester City, a situation publicly denied by the striker’s agent. Laporta, who described Font’s claim as “ridiculous”, did not campaign on any major signing promises — but comfortably won the vote.
Dermot Corrigan
What’s the history between Real Madrid and Haaland?
It is ironic that Haaland could be Riquelme’s main selling point, given that the Norwegian has such a prominent place in Real Madrid fans’ minds, thanks largely to Perez.
The 79-year-old’s reputation as a galactico recruiter is the main factor behind that; he is the man who brought Figo, Beckham, Ronaldo Nazario, Zinedine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe to the club. Some 26 years after Perez’s first master stroke, Riquelme is attempting to play that role.
Madrid have always liked Haaland. They considered making a move for him in 2021, the first summer of their Mbappe saga, but Borussia Dortmund said they would not sell.
The following year, Haaland joined Manchester City at a time when Madrid were again focused on Mbappe, eventually failing to secure his signing. Haaland did not want to wait for Madrid, and they also had Karim Benzema at his best.
Haaland and City were beaten by Real Madrid in this year’s Champions League round of 16 (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Since then, various sources from inside and outside Real Madrid have said Haaland’s name has never gone away.
In 2023, when Madrid were studying the market for a striker, a source close to Carlo Ancelotti’s coaching staff gave a reply that explained why the coach’s preference for Harry Kane was not being pursued: “The names here are Haaland and Mbappe. Period.” Whether or not they will make a move for him in the future is unclear, but Perez has always had him in mind.
However, Madrid finishing a second consecutive campaign without a trophy is another factor here. After the arrival of Mbappe from Paris Saint-Germain in 2024, what was supposed to be an unbeatable team with the Frenchman alongside Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo in attack has not turned out as expected.
As a result, a significant section of the Madrid fanbase believes that the accumulation of these galacticos makes it impossible to achieve a balance on and off the pitch — an impression shared by the club’s past three managers in Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa.
Mario Cortegana
Would Haaland work with Mbappe and Vinicius Jr?
Two of the three best goalscorers in football and one of the sport’s most fearsome wingers lining up together? On paper, it sounds jaw-dropping.
This is arguably the most rounded version of Haaland, too, after he recorded eight league assists while heading, defending and pressing better than in any previous season over 2025-26.
Unfortunately, football is played on grass.
Madrid have already struggled to find ways to get the precocious talents of Mbappe and Vinicius Jr to fit together over the past two seasons.
There have been moments when the duo, who both favour cutting inside from the left, have combined well, but those have been scattered over consecutive campaigns without silverware.
Madrid’s line-ups with Mbappe and Vinicius Jr, be it with Rodrygo, Jude Bellingham, or Federico Valverde on the right wing to support them, have repeatedly lacked balance. Haaland is left-footed, unlike those players, but if he partners Mbappe up front and Vinicius Jr lines up on the left, the two-year-old question returns: who plays on the right wing?
All of that does not even take into account the out-of-possession questions Haaland’s arrival would raise.
After four years under Pep Guardiola, Haaland is a better presser than Mbappe and Vinicius Jr. But out-of-possession work requires cohesion. Even when Bellingham or Rodrygo pressed with intensity, teams found workarounds by targeting Mbappe and Vinicius Jr’s weaknesses on the blindside or preference to stay high in search of transition opportunities.
Mbappe, Vinicius Jr and Bellingham celebrate in December’s La Liga victory over Athletic Club (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
This is an important transfer window for Madrid, but in truth their biggest priority is not the attack. Over the past two seasons, they have suffered significantly from a lack of squad depth in defence and midfield.
The most noticeable issue has probably been the absence of a deep-lying playmaker, which could be resolved with the signing of Rodri, who would also help address the lack of leadership that has affected the squad in recent years.
“It’s normal that players are linked with clubs,” Rodri told reporters at a media day at the Spain camp on Monday. “There might be noise but I’m focused on the World Cup, afterwards we’ll see.”
Elsewhere, the departures of right-back Dani Carvajal and centre-back David Alaba have created further gaps that still need to be filled. Here, Perez is making progress — The Athletic reported on Tuesday that Madrid are advancing talks for Inter right-back Denzel Dumfries and centre-back Ibrahima Konate, whose contract is expiring at Liverpool.
Anantaajith Raghuraman and Guillermo Rai
What are Riquelme’s chances of winning?
Perez did not need to call this election as he had an active mandate until 2029, but he wanted the vote as he believed it would shore up his power.
Before the campaign began, many onlookers thought Riquelme’s chances of victory were small, without some kind of Figo-type effect to upset the long-serving Perez.
The challenger himself clearly knows that he needs big names on his side if he is to have any chance of winning, but the equivalent of that today would probably be signing Lamine Yamal from Barcelona.
Riquelme’s first concrete move on the football side was to announce Raul as his sporting director. Raul is one of the biggest figures in Madrid’s history. He made a club record 741 appearances from 1994-2010, scoring 323 times (the third-most ever for Madrid), winning three Champions League trophies and six La Liga titles.
On Thursday afternoon, Riquelme then announced that Hierro — another legendary former Madrid player who made 602 appearances between 1989 and 2003 — would serve as his youth academy director. Getting both on board is a coup for Riquelme, given Raul is arguably the most revered of all the historic Madrid figures not inside Perez’s camp.
Perez pictured at the Bernabeu on May 14, two days after calling the election (Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
However, despite Riquelme’s promises, most Madrid members will be sceptical of the other commitments coming off, in the short term at least. Adding to that is the sheer strength of Perez’s position. His campaign messaging so far has leaned heavily on the six Champions League titles won since he returned to power unopposed in 2009.
Until Riquelme’s challenge this year — following Perez’s call for challengers to “come out of the shadows” at his rambling May 12 press conference when announcing the election — he had not been opposed since 2004, at least partly due to rule changes made on his watch over who can stand.
Given it has been so long since a Bernabeu election has been held — this is the first since Calderon’s success in 2006 — it is difficult to make any firm predictions. There have been internal rumblings of dissent among members over Perez’s recent decision making, especially his still not very well explained plan to sell some share of the club to an outside investor, so some at least may decide to vote for a change.
Perez is expected to further counter Riquelme’s announcement with further details of his campaign pledges on Thursday (tomorrow). A huge advert placed on a Madrid street near the Bernabeu next week teased a big-name signing.
Perez has also finally made it publicly known that he wants to bring Mourinho back as coach, with The Athletic reporting last week that the Portuguese has already signed a three-year deal, and moves for Dumfries and Konate are also under way.
With just a few days left before election day, now it will be Perez’s turn to make his next play.
Dermot Corrigan
