Tennis legend Rafael Nadal has stated his interest in becoming a future Real Madrid president.
The 37-year-old hails from Mallorca, while his uncle Miguel Angel Nadal joined Barcelona during the Johan Cruyff ‘Dream Team’ era and played for the club throughout most of the 1990s. He even idolised Ronaldo during the Brazilian’s Camp Nou days. But Nadal is an avid Madrid fan.
Florentino Perez has been Madrid president for 20 of the last 23 years over two spells in office.
His presidency was responsible for the rise of the Galacticos when the club signed Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and David Beckham in successive, as well as its resurrection from 2009 onwards with the arrivals of Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
During Perez’s time in charge, Madrid have broken the world transfer record on five occasions and won the Champions League six times. The Bernabeu is also in the final stages of a major redevelopment project, although his legacy has been somewhat tainted by his leading involvement in and being named inaugural chairman of the failed Super League.
Perez was re-elected unopposed in the most recent presidential ballot in 2021. But he will be 78 and 82 when the next two elections are due in 2025 and 2029 respectively, leading to growing speculation that he could begin to think about stepping down and retiring.
It will leave a significant void in the Real Madrid landscape, but Nadal would be up for the challenge.
“It’s not something that’s on my mind right now, I promise you that. Would I like to be? Yes, I think so,” he told Movistar+.
“Now at this point, it’s not something I’m thinking about for a number of reasons, we have the best president possible, then you never know in life what you might think now, and what you might think tomorrow.”
Nadal remains an active tennis professional. He won both the Australian Open and French Open in 2022, taking his career tally of Grand Slams to 22, which at the time made him the all-time leader – Novak Djokovic has since leapfrogged him with three wins in 2023 taking his tally to 24.
Injuries have hampered Nadal in 2023. In March, he fell out of the top ten in the ATP world rankings for the first time since April 2005 after an astonishing 912 consecutive weeks. Withdrawal from the French Open then saw him slip outside of the top 100 for the first time since 2003, while his continued absence from Wimbledon and then the US Open leaves him currently ranked 237th.
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