Florentino Perez has turned what already promised to be an interesting summer in the transfer market into a chaotic free-for-all as the world's leading clubs squabble among themselves over the delicacies left behind on the table.
By forking over $131 million for Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo and $94 million for Brazilian playmaker Kaka, Perez, the president of Real Madrid, has skewed everything.
Suddenly, deals that looked likely to be made are on hold. Players who seemed certain to be moving elsewhere are being prevented from doing so by clubs playing a bluffing game in the hope of securing a similar astronomical price.
Call it high-stakes soccer poker, with no assurance that anyone will emerge a winner.
For instance, it appeared last week to be only a matter of days before Spanish striker David Villa joined Ronaldo and Kaka at Real Madrid. But then Valencia President Manuel Llorente announced that Villa was "not for sale" and would stay with the debt-ridden Spanish club.
Of course, Llorente gave himself an out. He might, he said, be open to a "scandalously" high offer. In other words, more than the $52 million Real Madrid already is said to have been dangling in Valencia's direction.
In Germany, Bayern Munich is playing much the same game.
There, French midfielder Franck Ribery has stated that he would like to move on, and if that move entails swapping Munich's snow for Madrid's sunshine, so much the better.
Perez, in an ingenious move, has not only put former French star Zinedine Zidane on his payroll as a presidential advisor but has enlisted his help in landing Ribery, who is valued at somewhere around $100 million by Bayern Munich.
"I am all for Ribery joining Real Madrid and I will do everything to make it possible," Zidane recently told Le Parisien.
Complicating matters for Real Madrid is the fact that Manchester United now has plenty of cash on hand from the Ronaldo sale and is not at all put off by Bayern Munich's asking price for Ribery. The success that fellow Frenchman Eric Cantona enjoyed at Manchester United might cause Ribery to lean that way too.
While the pursuit of Villa and Ribery goes on, other dominoes have been slow in falling. There is a pause in the spending spree as player agents crisscross the continent trying to make a killing while the tabloids have a field day by printing rumors . . . and rumors of rumors.
