Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has hinted that the reasons why his club keep missing out on the Primera Division title to Barcelona recently "deserve a special analysis."
Madrid have won just one of the seven La Liga trophies since Perez returned to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu club in June 2009, with Barca winning the competition five times and Atletico Madrid taking the other title.
Although this period has seen Blaugrana players including Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta at their peak, some Blancos fans and pundits have often claimed that the competition is biased towards the Camp Nou outfit, with one of these theories being the Villarato idea pushed by AS editor Alfredo Relano which also implicated Spanish FA president Angel Maria Villar in a wide-ranging conspiracy.
Speaking to Marca after his club had won their last 12 league games to finish just one point behind Barcelona in the 2015-16 La Liga title race, while winning a second Champions League title in three years, the Blancos club chief said it was "not normal" to gain so many points year after year yet almost always miss out.
"Real Madrid had a very good La Liga season, and last season and the seasons before," Perez said. "Since I returned in 2009, the points we have achieved would have won all the Ligas before. It is not normal to lose with 91 points, 94 points, 92 points. Nobody ever got such points before. What is happening in La Liga deserves a special analysis."
Asked to expand on what he meant, Florentino said that his club had needed 100 points (in 2011-12 when Jose Mourinho was coach) to beat Barca to the title, while Atletico had been able to do it with just 90 (in 2013-14).
"It is not normal," he said. "To win this league we needed to get 100 points, score 120 goals. Nowhere else in the world does this happen. I am not saying anything [but] Atletico won La Liga with 90. But for us it is very difficult to win La Liga. You cannot say it was a failure this season. If it is an equal battle, we have a great chance to win everything."
Perez was also asked during the wide ranging interview about the future of the Champions League, amid reports that Europe's top clubs were threatening to form a breakaway European league if UEFA did not offer them more revenue and control over the current format.
"I believe the future is very open, anything can happen, [including] a truly European competition, and we would be there," he said. "At the moment it is very difficult, but it is a possibility for the future, for sure. We have asked UEFA for a change in the Champions League format because the current format has become tired."