Real Madrid’s electoral board confirmed Pérez defeated challenger Enrique Riquelme in Sunday’s presidential election. Pérez received 21,741 votes, or 65 percent, while Riquelme took 11,814 votes, or 35 percent, after in-person and postal ballots were counted.
The result extends Pérez’s presidency until 2030 and strengthens the authority of a president who has shaped Madrid across two distinct eras: the Galácticos project of the early 2000s, and the modern commercial machine built around a renovated Bernabéu, global stars and a very specific idea of institutional control.
Why did Pérez’s win matter for Mourinho?
Mourinho’s comeback was directly tied to Pérez staying in office. The Portuguese coach, now 63, had been lined up as the president’s preferred choice for the bench, but the plan depended on Pérez retaining control of the club.
BBC Sport reported that Mourinho signed a three-year agreement last month that would only become valid if Pérez won re-election. That turned Sunday’s vote into something more than a governance exercise. For Madrid’s members, it was also a referendum on the next sporting project, complete with a manager whose name still arrives carrying its own weather system.
The move is expected to require Madrid to settle Mourinho’s contract situation with Benfica. Before the election, the Portuguese club confirmed that Pérez’s candidacy had expressed its intention to hire José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix if it won, and that the operation would cost €15 million, matching the release clause in Mourinho’s current sporting employment contract.
What is Madrid getting back?
For Real Madrid, this is not a mystery appointment. It is a return to a known, combustible quantity.
Mourinho previously managed the club from 2010 to 2013, a period that produced trophies, tension and a nightly supply of Spanish football drama. His Madrid side won:
- La Liga
- The Copa del Rey
- The Spanish Super Cup
That team was also defined by its intensity and confrontational edge, especially during the peak of its rivalry with Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. Mourinho’s first spell helped frame one of the most heated chapters in modern Spanish football, when every Clásico felt less like a match and more like a legal deposition with counterattacks.
His legacy at Madrid remains complicated. He delivered results and pushed Barcelona hard, but his tenure also brought internal friction and relentless media scrutiny. More than a decade later, Pérez appears ready to bring back a coach built for pressure, conflict and elite dressing-room management, all useful skills in a place where second place tends to be treated as a structural failure.
What did Pérez say after the election?
After his victory, Pérez presented the result as a mandate for continuity and ambition. He said Real Madrid would keep working to win titles and pursue another European crown, while positioning Mourinho’s expected return as part of a broader effort to restore competitive force to the team.
Pérez also stressed that Real Madrid would remain owned by its members, a notable point after a campaign in which the club’s ownership model and long-term financial strategy were debated. In modern football, where outside investment keeps knocking on the door with a very expensive briefcase, that message was aimed squarely at the socios.
Sunday’s vote mattered beyond Mourinho. It was reportedly Real Madrid’s first contested presidential election in two decades, with Riquelme mounting a rare challenge to Pérez’s long-standing control. The campaign reopened arguments over governance, sporting direction and how a member-owned institution operates in a football economy increasingly shaped by private capital and global investment.
Riquelme tried to offer an alternative to Pérez’s established model. Pérez campaigned on experience, stability and major sporting promises. The numbers showed most voting members chose the familiar option.
What challenge would Mourinho inherit?
If the appointment is confirmed as expected, Mourinho will walk into an immediate test. Real Madrid finished the 2025-26 season without silverware, while Barcelona won La Liga. That alone guarantees pressure before the first training session, because patience at Madrid is often discussed in theory rather than practiced.
Mourinho would replace Álvaro Arbeloa, who took charge in January after Xabi Alonso’s departure. He would inherit a squad expected to compete instantly for domestic and European titles, not develop gently over several seasons while everyone applauds the process.
For Mourinho, the Bernabéu would restore him to one of club football’s biggest stages after spells across England, Italy, Turkey and Portugal since leaving Madrid in 2013. It would also return him to the Champions League spotlight and to a club where his reputation is still split between admiration for his winning mentality and memories of the turbulence that came with it.
What happens next?
The formal announcement of Mourinho’s appointment is expected to follow Pérez’s re-election, turning a campaign pledge into the first major act of the president’s new mandate.
The political question has been answered by the members. The sporting question starts now. Real Madrid have chosen continuity at the top and a forceful personality on the touchline, betting that Pérez and Mourinho can once again combine power, authority and ambition in pursuit of the trophies the Bernabéu expects as standard operating procedure.
