An audio recording from 2006 that was leaked on Tuesday reveals that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez called former players Iker Casillas and Raul Gonzalez the “biggest frauds” in the club’s history.
In the leaked audio, Perez explains in part that Raul was responsible for his decision to leave as president for the first time after returning to the role in 2009. In Perez’s second tenure, Casillas and Raul left the club but have since returned after retiring as players. Raul is the coach of Real Madrid’s B team, Castilla, while Casillas works for the Real Madrid Foundation.
“He is not good enough to be the goalkeeper for Real Madrid, what do you want me to say?” Perez says of Casillas in the audio, which first appeared in El Confidencial. “He is not. And he never has been.
Perez continues to say of Raul, “The second is Raul. The two biggest frauds at Madrid are first Raul and then Casillas.
“[Zinedine] Zidane’s a great guy. And [David] Beckham and Ronaldo. … But then there are the others that think that … let’s see. Raul is a bad person.
“He thinks Madrid is his and he uses everything there is in Madrid, developing everything for his own benefit. Him and his agent. They are to blame for Madrid not doing well.”
In a statement released later on Tuesday, Madrid said Perez’s audio was leaked because of his involvement in promoting the European Super League project that recently failed.
Having played for 18 years for Real Madrid, Raul left the club in 2010 and went to Schalke, Al Sadd and the New York Cosmos before returning as a coach in 2018. When he left, he was Madrid’s top scorer of all time, but he was since overtaken by Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored 450 goals in 11 years at the Bernabeu. It is Raul, however, who holds the club record with 741 appearances for the first team.
With 725 appearances, Casillas is second only to Raul. Having started out in the club’s academy in 1990, the goalkeeper left 25 years later for Portuguese team Porto and retired from the game in 2020 following heart problems.
