Real Madrid’s president had an audacious idea of moving Los Blancos from their iconic stadium to a theme park called ‘Real Madrid Land’ – somewhat similar to the famous Disneyland!This shocking news is revealed in the new book ‘Messi vs Ronaldo’ by Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson. It says that the entire idea got so far that Florentino Perez was in talks with a group of former Disney executives led by long-time CEO Michael Eisner.Florentino Pérez visitó a toda la plantilla del Real Madrid. 🤍 pic.twitter.com/1snQVje0yG— REAL MADRID❤️ (@AdriRM33) October 28, 2022 Per the book, Perez had even drawn sketches for rollercoasters that would follow the trajectory of famous club goals, such as Zinedine Zidane’s volley to win the 2002 Champions League final.Perez had started to act on the idea around the 2017-18 season, as he realised the drastic need to find new revenue streams in order to keep up with the state-owned clubs in Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. It fell apart because Eisner and his team realised Perez would need 75% more than the €1.4bn budget he had secured due to the sprawling nature of the project.##EDITORS_CHOICE##They had also raised concerns about the training ground being in the middle of the theme park, potentially allowing rival clubs to view the football team’s tactical plans – a notion that Perez dismissed with the line: “People see all that stuff anyway.”The idea had been in Perez’s mind for years, as the club had held internal discussions over the possibility in 2004 and even entered into negotiations to licence the club name to a resort in the United Arab Emirates. That would have also involved a marina in the shape of the club crest.##NAJAVA_MECA_6767215##The book details how the president now saw it as a “financial necessity” in order to keep pace, which led to the former Disney executives being invited to the Bernabeu boardroom.”In our world, we are as big as Disney,” he said, according to one of the book’s sources who had been present. “Real Madrid must do things like this because we are the number-one club, and the only way we will remain there is by always being the first big innovator.”
