"Bellingham will be 21 years old having played 251 games while Beckham had only played 54"

Although Florentino Perez's speech at the Real Madrid General Assembly began calmly, the ‘Merengues’ president became more animated throughout his hour-and-a-half-long appearance until he got to the most burning issues. In addition to his plea in favour of Vinicius and against the management of the Ballon d'Or, he also hit out at FIFA.

One of the issues that the Madrid president dealt with the most was the high load of fixtures that clubs currently suffer. "FIFA has increased the number of international breaks and UEFA has increased the number of matches in its existing tournaments, as well as launching a new tournament, the Club World Cup. Ten years ago they were organising 488 matches and now they are organising 760. They don't count on the players, they don't think that sport should be sustainable.

In this sense, Florentino Perez gave a very clear example to reflect the increase in commitments: "Bellingham, for example, will be 21 years old and will have played 251 games. At his age, David Beckham had only played 54. The physical and mental pressure is disproportionate. There is no time to rest and so the risk of injury is increased".

"At Real Madrid we have suffered seven cruciate ligament injuries in 15 months," exclaimed the businessman, who also spoke directly about the new Champions League format: "It is being detrimental to the professionals, increasing injuries. This season we can play 82 matches! There are 63% more matches organised by UEFA and FIFA, from 22 to 36. There have already been nine ACL injuries this season, the same as in the whole of last season. Specialists point to fatigue as the cause. The matches, on top of that, are getting later and later, making it difficult for the players to rest," he concluded.