Plot thickens as Real Madrid president Florentino Perez recordings target Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho

Madrid: Spanish online daily El Confidencial on Wednesday followed up a batch of audio recordings of Real Madrid chairman Florentino Perez disparaging two former club legends with similar outbursts on former star Cristiano Ronaldo and former coach Jose Mourinho. The latest quotes follow publication by El Confidencial on Tuesday of older recordings dating from 2006 in which Perez called club legends Raul and Iker Casillas "the two biggest Real Madrid frauds." In the second set of quotes Perez attacks Ronaldo, who won a huge haul of trophies with Real between 2009 and 2018, including four Champions Leagues. “He is mad. This guy is an imbecile, sick. You think this guy is normal - he’s not or else he wouldn’t do all the things he does,” Perez said in the latest comments to an unidentified person, the latest of which dates from 2012. Perez also hits out at Portuguese agent Jorge Mendes who represents both Ronaldo and Mourinho, who sat in the Real dugout from 2010 to 2013. “Mendes has no control over him (Ronaldo) and it’s the same with Mourinho - none at all,” said Perez. “Even for interviews, they don’t listen to him. These are two guys with terrible egos, spoilt the pair of them, who don’t see the reality because they could both earn a lot more money if they did things were different. “They are both abnormal because we are talking about a lot of money in image rights. “Also, it is because of the image they have, their provocative side, the fact that any people don’t like them … It’s the opposite of good publicity,” said Perez, who prides himself on his focus on Real Madrid’s business side and was a prime mover in the attempted Super league. Many of the quotes appeared in a book by the journalist Jose Antonio Abellan “Assault on Real Madrid” published in 2015. Perez complained on Tuesday that Abellan had made the recordings secretly and said the timing was related to his role as an organiser of the Super League. “The quotes are from conversations clandestinely recorded by Jose Antonio Abellan, who has been trying to sell them for years without success,” said Perez, whose second stint as chairman runs to 2025. “They are loose phrases from conversations taken out of the broad context in which they occur. That they are being reproduced now, after so many years have passed, I understand that it is due to my participation as one of the promoters of the Super League.” He warned Tuesday that his lawyers “are studying possible actions to be taken.”