Florentino Perez has given his account of why Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso left Real Madrid, and why James Rodriguez joined.
Perez was speaking to a group of Madrid members ahead of the club’s assembly, with his comments published by AS.
On the subject of James, both his signing and his deployment by Carlo Ancelotti, Perez insisted the Colombia international wanted to move to Madrid.
The President rejected any suggestion that the signing of James was tied to his ACS construction agency’s contracts in the South American nation.
“35% of the turnover of ACS is from Australia and there are no Australians on our squad,” Perez countered.
“This is information only put forward by the violent fans [the ultras]. While I am President violence and criminals won’t be back.
“Many of them aren’t members and they want to dominate Madrid as in France or Italy.
“I don’t know where James plays but he had a great World Cup and he wanted to be here.”
On Di Maria and Alonso, who joined Manchester United and Bayern Munich respectively, Perez explained there were differing reasons for their departures.
“Di Maria has gone because we couldn’t reach an agreement. Anyway, I always go with the best players and that comes into the question,” Perez said.
“Xabi strongly wanted to leave. The players who leave are based on institutional criteria because the interests of the players don’t correspond with those of the club.”
