Riquelme presents the Member’s City and promises to reduce 50% of the membership fee until he wins a Champions League

The businessman Enrique Riquelme officially presented this Wednesday the project of his candidacy to preside over Real Madrid, very focused on the figure of the member, whose figure has been “weakening” in the club between 2004 and 2026, and to whom he will return it if he wins the elections on June 7 against Florentino Pérez, with the ‘Member City’ as the epicenter of his social plan.

“Today is a very special day because it is a project that was needed and is the basis for the Real Madrid partner. I know that Real Madrid is a place for all Real Madrid fans in the world, but I believe that these are elections with special importance after 20 years without them and elections that must not be forgotten,” said Riquelme during the presentation of his candidacy.

The businessman recalled that the Madrid team “is global, but the club belongs to the members”, letting them be “the basis of this entire project.” “Real Madrid was founded as a members’ club and the members want to have their club. Between the 50s and 80s, Real Madrid had a club where Real Madrid members could live together, they could go with their families and they felt part of something, they felt owners and proud that the club really belonged to all Madrid fans, but they knew that they were the owners,” he expressed.

“For this reason, between 2004 and 2026, Real Madrid has lost any option and has been weakening that it belongs to its partners. Now it comes with privatization and if there was even the slightest doubt that Real Madrid belonged to its partners, it is clear that it will stop being so and that is one of the main reasons why I decided to take the step forward and be a legitimate voice against, clearly, privatization,” he added. “If I am president, it will once again be one of its partners,” he remarked.

The man from Alicante insisted that in his project “there is no improvisation”, because they have been working on it since 2021. “It was needed, it is the basis of and for the Real Madrid partner.” “These are elections with special importance after 20 years without them. Madrid is global, but the club belongs to the members,” he remarked.

And then he presented what is the epicenter of his social plan for the candidacy: the ‘Member City’, because “a club is not just titles, it is the people who feel it.” “Between the 50s and 80s there was a social club in which you could live together and feel part of it,” he said.

This is a proposal integrated into its electoral program that proposes the creation of a new social, sports and family campus for the club’s members. “It is the greatest transformation by and for the member in the history of Real Madrid. For the first time, the owners of the club are thought of. It is a place for coexistence,” he said.

“The member had the stadium left, today even the opposing fans have better seats than the season ticket holders. There are clubs that have been waiting for seven years to see Valdebebas, now they won’t have to ask for permission,” defended Riquelme.

The candidacy proposes developing a ‘Member City’ next to the current Real Madrid Sports City, conceived as a space for priority use for members, families and Real Madrid supporters clubs. The project would be deployed in three phases: a first focused on the social and sports campus; a second with a ‘premium’ hotel linked to the club’s ecosystem; and a third with a new basketball pavilion and concerts for 15,000 spectators.

50% MEMBER FEE REDUCTION UNTIL THE CLUB WINS A CHAMPIONS

The plan includes more than 745,000 square meters of total area, more than 100,000 square meters built and more than 350,000 square meters of outdoor spaces. It includes 84 sports facilities – tennis and paddle tennis courts and soccer fields -, more than 80 catering points and more than 150 meeting, training, work and event spaces.

Riquelme announced that the main facilities include a central clubhouse with coworking and restaurant spaces, an auditorium for events, sports areas for football, tennis, paddle tennis and basketball, family areas and a Madrid agora designed for broadcasts, celebrations and social gatherings.

“Real Madrid basketball team has to have its arena. Furthermore, in that pavilion for 15,000 people there will be concerts, we don’t think we will bother anyone there and we will make that part of the concerts profitable,” he commented in reference to the canceled concerts at the Santiago Bernabéu.

This ‘Partner City’ will be a “place of unity and not of rupture or confrontation,” because Riquelme insisted that his campaign “is based on respect.” “Let the partner decide and let no one decide for the partner. I am taking a step so that we have democracy,” he expressed. “The member will not only see Real Madrid. He will experience Real Madrid,” concluded the video created by the candidacy.

Furthermore, the businessman was in favor of the women’s team playing the “big games” at the Bernabéu. “It must play at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium, with more than 20,000 spectators, increasing the capacity. Modernizing it,” he commented.

Riquelme also reported on the measures focused on members and supporters within his social plan. “The partners are the great forgotten ones of Florentino Pérez and his board. This project places the partner at the center, as an institutional, social, economic and sports pillar,” he said.

Thus, the man from Alicante wants to “guarantee that Real Madrid will always be 100% of the members” and advanced a reduction in the membership fee of 50% “until a Champions League is won again.” He also asked that the waiting list for new subscriptions be “public and transparent” and criticized that there is “a lot of plugging, cronyism and sponsors.”

Given this, its program will include the opening of a draw for 10,000 new subscriptions before a notary and the opening of a membership quota among mothers and siblings of existing members. In addition, he denounced that the club is “the main reseller” of tickets, which is why he proposed a new subscription transfer plan whereby the member immediately recovers, in seven days, 70% of the final sale price.

Because the man from Alicante believes that the entity must be digitalized with a “fair technological system for preferential entries for non-subscribing members.” He remembered the veteran members, for whom he advanced “preferential attention” and “recovering the quality event of the members’ 25th anniversary.”

And more initiatives: a raffle for invitations to the box, having companions to away games, a companion pass for basketball, allowing the member to go with a companion to Real Madrid Castilla matches, a travel agency for clubs and members, reduced ticket prices for travel, greater access to training sessions on designated dates and to the quarry, and the launch of the member’s defender.

Riquelme also remembered the Madrid supporters’ clubs, to whom he promised on the Day of the supporters’ clubs and the Grada de las Peñas, to recover the General Assembly of the Supporters’ Clubs and discounts on tickets. He was also in favor of recovering the Santiago Bernabéu Trophy, of protecting the club’s two anthems, which would be played in the stadium on match days, and of creating a council of wise men with the 100 oldest members.

Finally, the man from Alicante charged against the ‘Negreira case’. “It is one of the biggest disrespects and nothing has happened for not raising your hand in time,” he criticized the Merengue club’s position in recent years, ending by reiterating that it wants to “put the member at the center, not every 20 years”, with a “greater closeness” to “recover that DNA.”