The Madrid that remains

Between each anniversaries, members could have the accountability of deciding what route we wish for our membership. As a result of after we vote we don’t simply elect a president: we determine easy methods to shield an establishment that belongs to its professional house owners, the members.

Santiago Bernabéu understood that concept higher than anybody. Throughout his thirty-five years on the helm of Actual Madrid, he reworked a nationwide sporting entity into a worldwide establishment, constructed the stadium that at the moment bears his title and promoted a legendary period culminating in six European Cups in a decade.

Solely as soon as has such a feat been repeated: underneath the presidency of Florentino Pérez, between 2014 and 2024.

It isn’t an opinion. It’s a historic truth.

Naturally, comparisons between eras have to be made with warning. However there’s a coincidence that’s troublesome to disregard: each presidents arrived on the membership at decisive moments and each understood that sporting greatness can solely be sustained by sturdy establishments.

Bernabéu constructed the trendy Actual Madrid.

Florentino Pérez assured that the establishment continued to be probably the most highly effective membership on the planet with out ceasing to belong to its members.

Bernabéu was additionally an important integrator. For 1000’s of Spanish emigrants or exiles, the membership was a gathering level and a standard dwelling. Maybe that can also be one among Florentino Pérez’s biggest contributions: having saved Actual Madrid followers united underneath a shared challenge that transcends ideologies, generations and private circumstances.

In Actual Madrid, very totally different sensibilities coexist, businessmen and employees, younger folks and veterans, all united by the identical colours and the identical historical past.

Nice establishments survive after they combine, not after they divide.

That’s the reason it’s price remembering the 2000 elections. We had simply gained the Eighth, however the members understood that the vital factor was not the most recent sporting end result, however moderately guaranteeing the long run independence of the membership. We vote fascinated about the establishment.

And we have been proper.

Expertise additionally teaches that success is rarely assured. We noticed this after the departure of Florentino Pérez in 2006. The membership went from a stable and recognizable challenge to years of uncertainty, inside divisions and unfulfilled electoral guarantees that ended up fueling the jokes of our adversaries greater than the keenness of the Madrid followers.

These of us who lived by way of that stage nonetheless keep in mind the songs demanding signings that have been promised however by no means arrived. Florentino’s return in 2009 gave Actual Madrid stability and a transparent route, inaugurating a interval of sporting, financial and institutional successes whose historic dimension is troublesome to debate at the moment. It will be important to not overlook this after we are invited to interchange certainties with unknowns.

“Santiago Bernabéu understood like nobody else that the establishment was above any individual. Maybe that’s the reason the very best tribute we are able to pay him on this vital week is to vote with serenity and institutional sense”

The outcomes are seen: probably the most profitable levels in up to date historical past, with seven European Cups, dozens of nationwide and worldwide titles, an financial place of world reference and a renovated stadium that symbolizes the institutional power of Madrid.

As a result of the independence of the Membership shouldn’t be proclaimed. It’s constructed.

Santiago Bernabéu understood like nobody else that the establishment was above any individual. Maybe that’s the reason the very best tribute we are able to pay him on this vital week is to vote with serenity and institutional sense.

On June 7 we’ll determine if we wish to keep the challenge that has offered our Madrid with the best sporting success, financial power and status in its up to date historical past or if, quite the opposite, we’re keen to danger the way forward for our establishment.

As a result of this membership does not belong simply to us. It was from those that constructed the previous Chamartín and from these emigrants and exiles who made their very own the satisfaction of seeing Madrid win in Europe. It’s also amongst these of us who’ve had the privilege of celebrating the Ninth, the Tenth, the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth and to see that the ambition to win solely lasts when it’s accompanied by the accountability of sustaining an establishment that’s economically stable, impartial and trustworthy to its members.

And it is going to be those that in the future obtain it from our fingers to proceed enhancing it.

The historical past of our Actual Madrid has all the time been constructed on the ambition to make it greater and larger and on the accountability of preserving what others left us. That can also be our process at the moment.

Let’s preserve the long run white.

*** Fernando Luján de Frías is member of the committee no. 39,853 from Actual Madrid.