Ramón Calderón

President from 2006 to 2009 of Spanish Football Club Real Madrid and Director from 2001 to 2006. He has been also Director of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), President of the Centenary Committee and, on the international level, was appointed Vice-President of UEFA's Club Competition Committee, and Director of the FIFA World Club Competition Committee, being an active and prominent participant and collaborator with UEFA and FIFA. Since his appointment and, after three years of have not got any trophy, the Club won five major titles in just two years, two La Liga championships and one Spanish Super Cup, by the football team, and one ACB League championship and one European League (ULEB) Cup in basketball.

He has been a major proponent and driving force behind the club's social and institutional transformation. While at the helm, he strengthened Real Madrid's social responsibility programs as well as the activities of its Foundation (where he is currently a Member of the Board) opening several Academies around the world to help children improve their lives. During his Presidency Real Madrid increased substantially the turnover and doubled the income for TV rights. He was also President of the Insurance Broker Association of Madrid, and Founder of the Spanish Insurance Broker Association. Has also served as a Member, or Secretary of the Board, in several national and international Companies. Currently he continuous working in his law office in Madrid (Spain) where he has been practising during 40 years, and participate regularly in TV and Radio Football Programs in Spain and abroad (BeIN Sports, BBC, Sky Sports, Talksports, ESPN, SiriuxRadio, Newsweek and others) Calderón was elected Real Madrid President on 2 July 2006, winning the elections with 8,344 votes whilst Juan Palacios was second with 8,098. Calderón hired Fabio Capello as club coach in his first year and Bernd Schuster, in the second one. Amongst his promises when running for election was the signing of Arjen Robben from Chelsea, Cesc Fàbregas from Arsenal and Kaká from Milan. He was only successful with Robben.

On 19 July 2006 he announced his first two signings, Fabio Cannavaro and Emerson; both signed from newly demoted Juventus for an estimated €20 million. He later signed Ruud van Nistelrooy from Manchester United and Mahamadou Diarra from Olympique Lyon as well as delivering on his promise to acquire Arjen Robben from Chelsea. A year long loan swap deal was also concluded with José Antonio Reyes from Arsenal moving to Real Madrid in exchange for Júlio Baptista. Before the start of the 2008–09 season, he tried to deliver Cristiano Ronaldo to the club failed in doing so as the player wanted to stay one more year in his Club. Finally, on 12 December 2008, he managed to sign the contract with the Portuguese player for the next 6 years after having agreed a transfer fee of 94 million€ with Manchester United.

On 16 January 2009 and after many pressures he decided to resign as Real Madrid president following unfair allegations of vote-rigging for the confirmation for the financial Budget. The supposed rigging consisted in the presence, in a General Assembly, of 10 non-accredited people among 1.380 participants while the Budget was approved for 350 votes

The case was taking to Court and the ruling of the Audiencia Provincial of Madrid was in favor of Calderon stating that he had not had any responsibility in that matter and that, on top of that, the presence of the people not credited, did not affect the result for the approval of the Loss and Profit Account. He was replaced by Vice-president Vicente Boluda, who took the presidency for a short stint, before Florentino Pérez's second term.