Is Perez behind Atletico's refusal to negotiate with Barcelona?

The most important relationship dates back to 2014. On 17 December of that year, the Leighton company, which at the time fell within the corporate structure of Hochtief and ACS, sold 50% of its services division to funds managed by Apollo Global Management.

ACS spell it out in their annual accounts: Leighton sold a 50% stake and struck a joint venture agreement with Apollo. The Australian company's own documents described the operation as a 50:50 investment partnership.

This was no passing collaboration between a client and a financing party. For years, companies belonging to the group chaired by Pérez and Apollo's funds worked as commercial partners on an equal footing in an activity that later became part of Ventia, one of the largest Australian companies operating in services and infrastructure. Until 2021, CIMIC, a subsidiary of ACS, ran Ventia alongside Apollo.

Apollo and Florentino's commercial group know each other well. They also shared significant economic interests.

There is another point of contact, this time directly with Real Madrid. In December 2021, the Spanish club closed an additional financing deal worth 225 million euros earmarked for the redevelopment works on the Santiago Bernabeu stadium. 

According to a report published by El Confidencial, citing the GlobalCapital website, Apollo, MetLife and Northwestern Mutual were among the leading investors in that operation, which JP Morgan and Bank of America structured.

Now Apollo have taken control of Atletico Madrid. Last March, the American company completed the acquisition of a majority of the Madrid club's shares. 

Apollo themselves officially confirmed that Apollo Sports Capital had become the largest shareholder in Atletico**, with Miguel Angel Gil Marin and Enrique Cerezo continuing to run the club.

They also appointed five of the 11 members of the new board of directors, and this is the same board that now unanimously backs the decision to refuse to negotiate with Barcelona.

Here we come to the most controversial episode in the entire story. On 9 June 2026, Real Madrid issued an entirely unusual official statement. 

The club confirmed its board had tabled a 150 million euro offer to Atletico Madrid for the registration rights of Julian Alvarez. The Rojiblancos rejected it.

Alvarez already sat near the top of Barcelona's wishlist, and the move drew particular interest because Real Madrid's pursuit of the Argentine striker all but vanished the moment that statement dropped. Barcelona, however, read it as something other than a failed transfer.

Inside the Catalan camp, they saw a manoeuvre designed to inflate the price they would later have to pay.

Early in June came a leaked lunch between Florentino and Cerezo, and the chronology looks particularly striking.

Real Madrid publicly put 150 million euros on the table. That very figure then became Atletico's reference point for sanctioning Julian's departure in principle.

According to Cadena SER, the Madrid club told the player that if he wanted to leave, he would have to bring an offer worth 150 million euros before 20 June.

What nobody has proven, though, is a causal link between the two. You cannot say Real Madrid's offer is what later drove Atletico to value Julian at around 150 million euros. 

But one thing is certain: the figure Florentino Perez announced became the main reference price for the entire operation.

From the Catalan point of view, this is where the suspicion lies. If Atletico knew selling their big star to Real Madrid was extremely difficult, and if Real Madrid never came back to sign him, then that offer effectively raised the financial ceiling Barcelona had to face.

The documented facts sketch a striking sequence. Apollo and ACS were commercial partners on an equal 50% basis. 

Apollo then helped finance the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, and now they have become the largest shareholder in Atletico. The Madrid club's new board, on which Apollo hold a strong presence, unanimously back the decision to refuse to negotiate with Barcelona. Before any of this, Real Madrid announced a 150 million euro offer for Julian, one Barcelona read as a possible manoeuvre to raise the cost of signing the Argentine striker.

Such facts justify the questions. They do not, however, allow an affirmative answer to the main one. There is no public evidence that Florentino Perez used his relationship with Apollo to block Alvarez's move to Barcelona, nor any evidence that Apollo took Atletico's decision with Real Madrid's interests in mind.

The commercial relationship exists. The financing of the Bernabeu did happen. So did the 150 million euro offer, announced officially by Real Madrid, and Barcelona read it as a move that could hurt them financially from the very first moment.

Against a hazy backdrop, a string of coincidences has Barcelona wondering whether Florentino played any role in all this chaos. 

Maybe they are nothing more than excuses from a party that won't be able to sign the player. Or maybe there's something else at work, something that reveals the immense influence Florentino Pérez wields across various circles of society.

Either way, Barcelona's failure to sign Julián should come as a relief to Real Madrid. It means their rivals won't strengthen their squad as much as they had hoped.

Sport noted: "Let us remember that Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta have had a bad relationship since Barcelona pulled out of the European Super League project, and also because of the complaints Real Madrid filed in the Negreira case.