Perez Blasts Makelele And Insists Real Are Stronger

Real Madrid's controversial president Florentino Perez believes the Spanish champions are in a stronger position than last season despite a host of departures and in particular the sale of Claude Makelele, a player Perez in confident won't be missed.

Perez told France Football that the arrival of David Beckham at the Santiago Bernabeu more than makes up for the sale of the French midfielder, who joined Chelsea for £16.6m just before the close of the transfer deadline.

He said: "The arrival of David Beckham at Real Madrid amply compensates for the exit of Claude Makelele and for that reason the team is stronger than that of last year."

Perez was involved in a bitter row with Makelele before his sale to big-spending Chelsea, but while he feels the player was guided by "bad advice", he has not held back in criticising a player that was seen by many as the most important part of Real's team of superstars.

"We will not miss him," stressed Perez. "He couldn't header and rarely passed the ball more than three meters."

"Young players will come and make everyone forget about Makelele," he added.

The row centred around Makelele's understandable demands to be paid a similar salary to that of his 'galactico' team-mates, like Zinedine Zidane, Raul and Ronaldo.

However, while Perez claims he was offered an improved salary, the club were not prepared to pay him "half that of Zidane", which is what he was demanding.