‘Two biggest Real Madrid frauds are first Raul and second Casillas’: Real Madrid president’s 2006 audio recordings

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has dealt with several challenges during his twin stints as the president of the world’s biggest and most decorated football club and there is a new addition to that list.

On Tuesday, old recordings of Perez’s from 2006, just after he had concluded his first stint as president of the club, were published in online newspaper El Confidencial. In these recordings Perez was heard calling club legends Raul Gonzalez and Iker Casillas ‘frauds’.

“Casillas is not the goalkeeper for Real Madrid,” he said. “He is not and never has been. He has been a big failure.”

“The problem is people adore him, love him, talk to him, they defend him so much.

“He is one of the biggest frauds and the other is Raul, the two biggest Real Madrid frauds are first Raul and second Casillas,” Perez was quoted as saying.

The quotes had already appeared in a book by the journalist Jose Antonio Abellan “Assault on Real Madrid” published in 2015.

Perez complained in a statement released by Real on Tuesday that Abellan recorded the remarks secretly. Perez said the timing was a result of his role as an organiser of the Super League.

“The quotes are from conversations clandestinely recorded by Jose Antonio Abellan, who has been trying to sell them for years without success,” Perez said.

“They are loose phrases from conversations taken out of the broad context in which they occur,” Perez said.

“That they are being reproduced now, after so many years have passed, I understand that it is due to my participation as one of the promoters of the Super League.”

While nine of the 12 Super League clubs have admitted their error, Real Madrid, along with Barcelona and Juventus, have refused to abandon the project.

Perez concluded by saying his lawyers “are studying possible actions to be taken.”

(With AFP inputs)