Real Madrid approves accounts at stormy meeting

Real Madrid approved on Sunday its accounts for the fiscal year of 2009 by a narrow margin at a stormy annual general meeting which was interrupted by jeers directed at the Spanish club's president Ramon Calderon.

Several of the 1,215 Real members who took part at the meeting whistled and yelled “Resign!” just before the vote in which the accounts for fiscal year 2008 were also approved.

Supporters of Calderon – who is under fire for the club's lack of form this season and his failure to recruit new talent over the summer as promised – responded by calling the president's opponents “anti-madrilenos”.

Calderon defended the club's record, saying “it is important to analyse the situation with realism”.

“We have qualified to play in the last-16 of the Champions League with one game to go in the present round. We are one of the top four teams in the league table with a hardly significant point distance from the leaders,” he said.

“All this is even more impressive when taking the large number of injuries sustained by the team into account. I would like to know how other teams would fare in such a situation,” he added.

Real are in fourth place with 26 points, nine less than leaders FC Barcelona with one less game played.

Participants at the meeting approved the accounts for fiscal year 2008 with 603 votes in favour and 442 votes against with 52 abstentions.

The accounts for fiscal year 2009 were approved by a smaller margin with 564 votes in favour, 517 against and 32 abstentions.

The accounts for the year ending on June 30 forecast a 9.4 percent rise in sales over the previous year to 400.2 million euros (505 million dollars) and a rise in pre-tax profit of 6.6 percent to 54.8 million euros.

But his critics challenged the accounts, saying they “masked” a debt which is in fact over 500 million euros.

Calderon criticised the “bad faith” of his critics, arguing the accounts were sound.

“Nobody can criticise Real Madrid's financial strength,” he said, adding the projected sales of over 400 million euros highlights “our capacity of generating income, which says much about our responsible management.”

Real Madrid were the world's largest revenue-generating club for the third successive season in the 2006/07 season, according to an annual ranking compiled by business advisory firm Deloitte.

The reigning Spanish champions overtook Manchester United as the biggest football club by revenue in the 2004/05 season after a policy of signing big names like David Beckham, Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane led to a surge in sales of replica shirts and other items.