Court turns down appeal to delay Real election

The election for the Real Madrid presidency will go ahead as planned on Sunday after a Spanish court on Thursday turned down the appeal by one of the candidates for their suspension.

Former president Lorenzo Sanz had asked for the postponement of the election after presenting evidence he said showed that rival candidate Florentino Perez had been incorrectly collecting postal votes before campaigning had officially begun.

The court decided the collection of postal votes by Perez should be halted immediately, but said the election should continue.

The judgement did not make clear the status of those postal votes that had already been registered, leaving the way open for both candidates to give their own interpretation of the ruling.

"I think this judgement shows that the postal vote gathered by Perez is not valid," Sanz told a news conference at his electoral headquarters.

But Perez responded by issuing a statement in which he said the ruling had "proved that the validity of the postal vote was unquestionable."

The third candidate standing in the election, Arturo Baldasano, said he was preparing a separate legal challenge to the way postal votes had been collected.

"These elections have been stained," he said. "We can't allow people to doubt the legality and prestige of Real Madrid."

Perez, who defeated Sanz in the last presidential election four years ago, is the strong favourite to be re-elected.