REAL AND RANGERS
A few weeks ago our new Chairman compared Rangers with Real Madrid as being a feared name in Europe. It was a brash statement and one which is unfortunately not true.
The weekend before the Sunday Herald carried an interview with the Real Madrid President Florentino Perez which makes for very interesting reading and a starting point for comparisons between the two clubs.
While we give every appearance of being happy to settle for not even competing to be one of Europe's great team on or off the field Real forge ahead. There is obviously a vast difference between the size of supports, European silverware count and strength of the leagues we play in but the prime difference is that Real fans and their president share a dream.
It¹s not just about the team - they are in love with their city - Perez speaks of the city built in 854 by the Arabs as a fortress on the banks of the Manzanares river. Then in 1561 King Felipe II moved the Spanish court there and made Madrid his capital - a strange choice but, as Perez, who loves telling the story, points out, 'they had a dream'.
Compare that with David Murray in the same newspaper earlier this year almost bragging about never having had a social night out in Glasgow and of rattling off statistics showing that Edinburgh was wealthier and catching Glasgow up in the population stakes and other markers of economic success. Hardly an attitude to give you confidence in his commitment to the city.
As the years passed Madrid grew - with wide boulevards, majestic squares and fountains. Perez says - 'They had a vision and followed it. It's a legacy which Madrid as a city has inherited and continued. Dream, build, create ... I like to think Real Madrid as a football club is a part of that.'
Then the legendary Real chairman Santiago Bernabeu arrived - people thought he was crazy to build a 100,000 capacity stadium - 'They said it was too big, too expensive, it would never work, and now it is the jewel of world stadiums. It worked because Bernabeu had a vision and believed in it. We are working hard to keep that same mentality today.'
Does anyone believe that we have anyone on our board today who has that vision? I doubt any of them even have the vision to have the biggest ground in Glasgow never mind the world.
Bernabeu ran the club with an iron fist - he once sacked captain Juanito Alonso when he laughed at a Belgian chef's attempt to make a tortilla. It took a brave man like Bernabeu, contrary to the stereotype, to refuse admittance to the presidential box to an old Francoist war hero like Millan Astray.
Of course, dreams need to be paid for. While some of our personnel try to talk themselves into believing Auchenhowie will solve our problems the really big European clubs - Real, Ajax, Manchester United - pursue a policy which marries the dream (kids from all over the world want to play for them) and the harsh reality of business. Bring through kids like Raul by all means but also have the ability to buy big.
Real Madrid sold 3,000 Ronaldo shirts the day he signed. When Real signed Zinedine Zidane they bought 90% of his image rights - the Frenchman gets £5.4m, tax-free, per year for four years on this aspect of the deal alone. Real ordered 500,000 replica shirts with Zidane's name on them and stuck them into their 100 retail outlets right away - generating £15m in revenue straight off. When they signed Figo they sold 100,000 in two months. In 1999-2000 they sold 700,000 replica shirts - more than 300,000 of them had Raul's name on them.
So despite the tripe spouted these days at Ibrox about rearing our own by those responsible for pouring money down the drain in the transfer market signing big players does make sense.
When Real played Roma in August in New York for a preseason friendly they drew a crowd of 70,635 to Giants Stadium despite not having played in America since 1959. How many did we get and when will we be back? If we really wanted to build in North America we'd be playing in Toronto which is the centre of the last wave of mass Scottish migration to Canada, instead we went to New York because we were promised £250,000 - let's hope that unlike the Amsterdam Sixes we actually get paid.
In Real Madrid ambition meets tradition and is administered with commercial flair.
Like Rangers, Real have also suffered down the years from stereotyping in the media which has seen them painted as Franco's team.
Franco may have attended the matches but it took Real thirteen years into the dictatorship of the Caudillo before they won a league championship. During the same time Barca and Bilbao were more successful.
At Ibrox just now, and since we threw away 10 In A Row, there's been a real lack of heart in the support. Of course we can still get up for big matches but do we really believe we are supporting a club whose leaders have a plan or a dream?
It's not all about dollars and cents - people don¹t empty their pockets or their hearts for those who speak in economic gobbledygook - but they are prepared to make great sacrifices for those who share their dreams.
Have a look at what the Real chairman offers his fans and weep.
'We can't run the club based only on business parameters. Say we hadn't spent that money on Zidane. Say we had spent only half of that and bought two or three young, emerging superstars.
We might still have won what we did. And we would have spent less money. But that is the thinking of one who does not understand this club.
By buying Figo, Zidane, now Ronaldo, we gave our fans dreams, fantasies, intangibles which you can not put a price on.'
'Wearing this shirt is a process of identification with our millions of fans, with our glorious history, with all the legends who wore it in the past. As president of Real Madrid, I must be a businessman and think of the bottom line. But I must also understand what this club is about. And that is dreams.
We all have dreams. Those who are Madridistas live some of those dreams through their club. If I did not keep that alive, I wouldn't be doing my duty.'
'I think being a fan is not just about cheering your team and watching them for 90 minutes, it's about waiting, anticipating, fantasising about what might be. Summer is always the best time of the year for a supporter, because in those months, anything appears possible.
At Real, we fuel those dreams by stating exactly what we're going to do: sign the very best players in the world.
The difference, of course, is that we then go out and do it.'