FOUR DAYS, two world records and €150 million spent. Crisis, what crisis? Recession is something that happens to other people, not Real Madrid. On Monday, they signed the 2007 Ballon d’Or and Fifa World Player winner Kaka for €67.5 million. Yesterday they had a €94 million bid accepted for Cristiano Ronaldo, the 2008 Ballon d’Or and Fifa World Player winner. Florentino Perez’s second coming at Real Madrid looks much like the first, only on fast-forward.

We have been here before. During Perez’s first spell as president at the Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid boasted four winners of the Ballon d’Or: Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and Michael Owen. None of them won the award for what they achieved in a Madrid shirt; they pulled on a Madrid shirt because they had won the award.

Perez has now paid the four highest transfer fees of all time. He used to buy a star a summer. Now, he has bought two at once and this is likely to be just the start. The model has not changed but the urgency has. This is a kind of Galácticos-express. Perez insists Madrid must “do in one year what we would normally do in three”.

On the face of it that means at least another superstar. With Ronaldo secured, Franck Ribery seems to have taken a step away from the Bernabeu, Perez last night admitting that “as Bayern Munich do not want to sell, we will respect that”. But Madrid do want another big name signing and, although he only bought one Spaniard during his last mandate – Sergio Ramos from Sevilla for €27 million – Perez has talked of providing a national spine to the side. David Villa fits both categories.

Perez has intimated that Madrid need to buy as many as six or seven players and is prepared to spend around €300 million – €50 million more than Chelsea spent in 2003, the most lavish of summers under Roman Abramovich.

When Perez took over in 2000, Madrid had just won the European Cup. Signing by signing, departure by departure, with each passing year the team became more his own. When Perez took over this time, Madrid had just finished nine points behind Barcelona and been eliminated from the Champions League at the first knock-out stage for the fifth successive season. This time he wants it to be his team immediately. There is certainly work to be done. And quickly.

But it is less about building a team, more about building a brand. Perez has talked rather less about Madrid’s football than he has about recovering “their place in the world”. Today there is no doubt they are the centre of attention all over the planet.

He has talked less about the footballing model as an economic one. His vision now is the same one as underpinned the Galácticos project – a vision so graphically demonstrated by the signing of David Beckham. It was his iconic status, not his crossing ability, that truly seduced Perez.

Lessons must surely have been learnt from the failure of the original galacticos, even if the only mistake Perez has admitted to publicly was walking away. But the framework is non-negotiable. Even the director-general Jorge Valdano, so often portrayed as a paragon of football purity, has spoken of the game as an entertainment industry. Having gone on about the strategic value of Kaka in one recent interview, Valdano hastily added: “He has an important footballing value too.”

That model explains why Perez believes Madrid can afford to spend €300 million. In fact it helps to explain why he believes Madrid cannot afford not to spend €300 million. As they were when Perez last came into power, Madrid are in debt.

In 2000, the figure was €278 million; now, according to research by Jose Maria Gay at Barcelona University, the figure could be as high as €500 million. Last time Perez sold the club’s training ground for €447.7 million, using the money to clear the debt and finance transfers. This time he has secured a deal with the Catalan bank La Caixa.

“The cheapest player I ever signed was Zidane,” Perez says. “Signing stars is not spending money, it is investing it.”

Guardian Service