Onside Footy

TODAY IN FOOTBALL HISTORY.

16 July 2016

ON THIS DAY 10 years ago, Chelsea signed Ngolo Kante from Leicester City for a reported fee of £32m.

🏆 Premier League
🏆 FA Cup
🏆 Europa League
🏆 UEFA Champions League
🏅 PFA Player POTY
🏅 Premier League POTY
🏅 FWA Footballer of the Year
🏅 Chelsea POTY
🏅 Chelsea Player's POTY

Worth every penny.

TODAY IN FOOTBALL HISTORY.

16 July 2000

ON THIS DAY 26 years ago, Spanish billionaire Florentino Pérez took office as president of Real Madrid, ushering in the club's first Galácticos period.

Pérez, a civil engineer and construction company CEO, ran for club president in 1995, campaigning on mismanagement by incumbent Ramón Mendoza, but lost by 700 votes.

In 2000, Pérez ran again , this time against Lorenzo Sans for president, accusing mismanagement and financial instability. He won by promising to bring Barcelona star Luís Figo to Bernabeu.

Figo was quickly joined in Madrid by several other high-profile and expensive players, including Zinedine Zidane (2001), Ronaldo (2002), David Beckham (2003), Michael Owen (2004), and Robinho (2005), leading to the nickname "Galácticos." The strategy worked, as Real Madrid won the league title in 2001 and 2003, with a Champions League trophy in between. But the team started to fracture around different factions, resulting in Pérez's 2006 resignation.

Pérez returned to the presidency in 2009 and immediately re-started his former policy, buying several expensive superstars that summer, including Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo, Raúl Albiol, Karim Benzema, and Xabi Alonso. Although Madrid finished the season in second place behind rivals Barcelona, they won the league in 2012. In those years, Pérez brought a lot of new faces to the team, including Mesut Özil, and Ángel Di María,

Pérez won re-election in 2013, bringing in Carlo Ancelotti to replace Mourinho. Pérez also brought in Welsh footballer and PFA Player of the Gareth Bale,
During the 2014 summer transfer window, Pérez brought in 2014 FIFA World Cup stars James Rodríguez, Toni Kroos,and Keylor Navas to Real Madrid for a combined cost of £95 million, as well as Javier Hernández on a loan deal from Manchester United.

Overall his tenure has been largely successful, helping the club to a record tenth Champions League trophy in 2014, before winning it 3 times in a row between 2015-2018 then afterwards 2022 and 2024 to amass a record 15 European titles.