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| Florentino perez attends a news conference after resigning as Real Madrid president. |
Florentino Perez resigned as Real Madrid president on Monday, a day after his side lost 2-1 to struggling Real Mallorca and with his club facing the prospect of a third successive season without a majortrophy.
"I decided to call an urgent board meeting today because I believe that the club needs a change of direction and as a result I have decided to resign as president of Real Madrid.
"Something has been going wrong and everyone could see that in yesterday's match against Mallorca. That's when I made up my mind to leave.
"I hope this decision will help us change direction and I believe that we still have a chance of achieving something in the European Cup thisseason. At the very least I hope it will enable us to plan properly for next season."
The 58-year-old construction magnate said that director Fernando Martin, a leading property speculator, had been the unanimous choice of the board to take over in his place.
Perez was elected president by club members in 2000 and returned once again in a landslide victory in July 2004.
He was responsible for ridding the club of its massive 270 million euros ($319.8 million) of debt by selling it's city-centre training ground for a reported 480 million euros soon after he came to power.
However he will be best remembered for his "Galacticos" policy which brought in a string of world-class players, such as Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and David Beckham and helped make Real the most glamorous football club in the world.
The policy also acted as the springboard which allowed Real to become a global leader in the marketing stakes and overtake Manchester United as the richest football club in the world.
(Reuters)
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Updated: 2006-02-28 11:22
