Secret Recording of Pérez Leaked, Alleges Assassination Plot Against Him

The week leading up to Real Madrid's first presidential election since 2006 has kicked off with a bombshell revelation. Catalan radio station RAC 1 has released a secret audio recording of Florentino Pérez from 2019, made during an investigation into a case initiated by Pérez himself against Ignacio Sánchez Galán, the executive chairman of Iberdrola. Iberdrola is one of the world's largest energy companies and a global leader in renewable energy. The allegation was that Galán had hired former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo to spy on Pérez and leak compromising information through the media.

In the recording released on Monday, which is part of Pérez's testimony before the National Court on November 14, 2019, the Real Madrid president accuses Sánchez Galán, with whom he maintains a hostile relationship to this day, of conspiring with Villarejo to remove him in one of three ways: through assassination, by exposing alleged bank accounts in tax havens, or by fabricating a story about an illegitimate child.

"There are three things I've been told repeatedly. One is that the best way is to make me disappear through an accident or a virus. I didn't know you could make someone disappear with a virus. The other thing they say is that they need to find the accounts Florentino Pérez has outside of Spain, and that they would pay a lot of money for that. And the third, which is completely outrageous, is to invent a child for me," the Madrid club president told Judge Manuel García Castellón.

In his testimony for the case, which is under a gag order and, according to RAC 1, lasted about an hour, Florentino Pérez also criticized the press. He claimed that Villarejo and several journalists intended to use information against him for blackmail—something he said he suffered from regularly, which led him to seek help from the then-director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Félix Sanz Roldán. "He told me not to worry too much," Pérez added.

It is worth noting that during the press conference where he announced his departure from the newspaper ABC and called for elections at the Santiago Bernabéu after a trophyless season for the football team, Pérez hinted that Sánchez Galán was behind the candidacy of Enrique Riquelme—his only rival in the election scheduled for Sunday, June 7.