“The wise warrior avoids the battle” – this quote of Suz Tzu perfectly describe how the current President of Real Madrid Florentino Pérez Rodríguez likes to operate and Jose Angel Sanchez is the man who is sent to the battlefield.
A unknown figure in the world of football, Jose Angel Sanchez is second to only Perez in Real Madrid’s organizational charts, since the sacking of Jorge Valdano in 2011 who at the time was the director general, Jose Angel Sanchez has been allotted great responsibilities.
(Right) Jose Angel Sanchez Perianez
Jose Maria Garcia is a well known retired sports journalist and is one of the biggest foes of Perez, he even said in an interview that “Florentino is the most corrupt president in Spanish football”. In the year 2000 Jose Angel Sanchez earned Perez’s trust by stopping Garcia from criticizing Perez by using his links in the Spanish Media and perhaps favours like these made Perez trust Sanchez
Jose Angel Sanchez who had worked as the CEO of Sega from 1995 till 2000 in Southern Europe was one of the first men brought by Perez during his first tenure at the club which started in the year 2000. He was the perfect man to make Real Madrid a worldwide brand. Jose Angel Sanchez was the pioneer of the new philosophy at Real Madrid alongside Perez, whose first priority was always marketing, it was aided by stars like David Beckham, Zidane and Ronaldo who were known as the Galacticos. In the year 99-00 no match at the Bernabeu was sold out, including the el-clasico but after Perez won the election it all changed. Jose Angel Sanchez who was the club’s marketing director at the time helped elevate the image and the value of Real Madrid’s badge and their journey to defy frontiers, language and race started.
(Starting from the left) Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham
Real Madrid were criticized for this approach as it made the side unbalanced, for e.g they sacked Del Bosque who had won a lot with Real Madrid and went on to win the World cup with Spain in 2010 because Perez felt he was not a modern day manager and he rebelled against the Galacticos approach, Perez refused to board the same plane as Del Bosque for over a year when the team travelled, even though Del Bosque was correct in criticizing Perez and the signing of Beckham for he was perhaps one of the reasons the first Galacticos failed to live up to the expectations but Beckham brought 600 million euros in marketing and merchandise according to Jose Angel Sanchez.
Perez and Sanchez were perhaps one of the very few to recognize the importance of brand value and money in football. They had mastered the art of living in a global economy as a club and they played a vital role in capitalizing the club which helped remove debt and optimize the level of expenditure, selling their old training facility Ciudad Deportiva for 400 million euros and moving to a better training facilities in Valdebebas or Ciudad, Real Madrid was another major accomplishment.
In 2006 Florentino left the club, Calderon became the new president but surprisingly he decided to keep Jose Angel Sanchez at the club, he was promoted as the general director of the president, Jose Angel Sanchez had a very good relationship with everyone in Madrid for example Predrag Mijatovic with whom he planted the plan to bring Higuain, Marcelo and Fernando Gago, who were excellent buys at the time. Sanchez was more involved in ACS, which was a Civil Engineering company owned by Perez and didn’t devote ample time to Real Madrid. Jose Antonio Abellan in his book (Assault on Real Madrid) states that Sanchez was the speaker of Perez in the board during Calderon’s era and was telling Perez about the steps taken by the board in his absence.
Jose Angel Sanchez has always believed that Real Madrid should be completely privatized, which will bring 1 trillion euros to the club, the shares of the socios should be ceased and it should be run like other top European clubs but Perez and Sanchez are not on the same page on this topic and Perez thinks it is completely impossible.
During the second tenure of Florentino, the board members wanted Sanchez removed and one of the reasons behind it was his corruption scandal involving him and the betting company “Bwin”. During Calderon’s time the daughter of Anton Parera (Former Barcelona Directive) played a vital role in getting Bwin as the sponsor of Real Madrid but when the deal was struck all the commission Bwin had to pay went to the pocket of Sanchez and Parera’s daughter received nothing but despite all this Perez kept Jose Angel Sanchez at Real Madrid and as stated earlier when Valdano was sacked in 2011, Sanchez had become much more than a marketing king.
Perez’s second spell started with bringing Galacticos to the club. 257.4 million Euros were spent in the season 2009/2010, bringing stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka. It was Jose Angel Sanchez who convinced Perez to splash money on Cristiano Ronaldo, who at the time became the most expensive player of all time and now after 8 years he is arguably the club’s greatest player of all time. In February of 2013 Zidane was assigned to scout Gareth Bale of Tottenham , who at the time was considered just a step below Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi, the two greatest players of all time and in June Jose Angel Sanchez was tasked to bring Gareth Bale to the Bernabeu, again Sanchez did not disappoint and made Gareth the most expensive player of all time.
But since the signing of Gareth Bale Perez has moved on from the policy of Galacticos and is now more interested in signing of the elite young players, who come cheaply and are not a big risk financially. The reason behind this is the money being pumped into European football by the Middle East and the insane TV deals in the premier league. Perez has acknowledged the fact that Real Madrid cannot compete financially with them and are now not the only financial super power in the world of football. It also raises the question that should Real Madrid be sold to a private owner? As suggested by Jose Angel Sanchez.
Sanchez is paramount to this new policy of Real Madrid, evident from the signing of Asensio, who he bought for merely 3.5 million euros. Bayern Munich technical director Micahael Reschke recently praised Sanchez for this deal saying “You have to make Jose Angel Sanchez a monument!”
Sanchez has played a vital role beside signings and marketing, for e.g he was the bridge between the club and Jose Mourinho and he has publicly stated that the Beckham law should return to Spain, fearing that Laliga will not cope with the premier league if they have tough tax laws while the premier league players pay less tax.
But besides these successes we have seen Jose Angel Sanchez being criticized. One of the major criticism he faced was for the De Gea “fax machine day”. Sanchez was also slandered for the expelling of Real Madrid from Copa Del Rey in December 2015 for fielding the ineligible Denis Cheryshev.
Jose Angel Sanchez has been a wanted man in football, shortly after the UEFA Champions League final in Milan in 2016, Sanchez decided to move to Gestifute, the organization of the most powerful agent in world of football owned by Sanchez’s friend Jorge Mendes but Perez convinced him to stay. Reports in 2016 suggested that Mourinho wanted Sanchez to replace Ed Woodward.
Jose Angel Sanchez doesn’t have a healthy relation with other members of the board, like Manuel Redondo but Perez has kept him till this day. Since the return of Perez Real Madrid has become more powerful financially and since 2011 Real Madrid’s brand value has increased by 146.73 % and Madrid has won 2 league titles and 3 Champions leagues including back to back Champions League triumphs.
For some fans Jose Angel Sanchez is a perfect man to replace Perez and carry forward the philosophy of Perez but we can’t deny the fact that only Perez has kept him at Madrid and he is not a popular figure in the board and this might be the reason we might never see him as the president.
Tacticomotion 