In 22 March 2012, a 200 strong-audience gathered at the Presidential Balcony of the Santiago
Bernabeu’s hospitality lounge. Among them were then Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho,
first team director Zinedine Zidane, players Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos, and the UAE
ambassador to Spain, Dr. Hessa Abdullah Ahmed Al Otaiba.Florentino Perez, Real’s president,
was unveiling a $1 billion dollar island resort in the United Arab Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah.
The 430,000 square metre “sporting destination” would house a luxury 450 room hotel, a marina
in the shape of Madrid’s club’s crest, an amusement park, a club museum, shopping
mall and over 500 beachside residential properties.The first recreational tourism complex to feature
the Real Madrid trademark would sit on an artificial island off the coast of Ras al-Khaimah.
There would be a 10,000-capacity football stadium. The first ground in the world to
have aside open to the sea. There was also mention of a rollercoaster, a 'submarinecircuit'
and 'holographic football games'.Once open in January 2015, it would attract one million
visitors a year, and generate an estimated €50 million per annum for the club. Best
of all, it wouldn’t cost Madrid a cent. They were only licensing their name over a
22-year period to the developers who would shoulder all of the financial risk.Also present
at the event was Louis Armand de Rouge, chief executive of RAKMarjan Island Football, and
Dr. Khater Massaad, representative of the Government of Ras al-Khaimah and CEO of RAK
Investment Authority. “We expect it to be profitable,” de Rouge said. “In the first
three years we should be more than breaking even.”A week later Perez, Zidane and Emilio
Butragueno, the legendary centre-forward, visited Ras al-Khaimah for another event to
officially announce the project, along with Dr. Massaad and his boss, the Emir of Ras
al-Khaimah His Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qasimi.“The Ras al-Khaimah government
shares our vision, drive and ambition to create a unique concept of ‘Sportainment’,”
Perez proclaimed that day on the waterfront. “This is a decisive and strategic step that
will enhance the strength of this institution in the Middle East and Asia. The project may
seem unusual for a football club, but we feel this will set a trend across the industry
as clubs try to find new ways to make money.”Seducing fans with holographic players seemed quite
fantastic, but Madrid were very keen to build commercial links with the gulf region ahead
of the World Cup in 2022. The club were actively pursuing a fanbase in the Middle East and
Asia that they claimed was 160 million strong, with the UAE seen asa ‘gateway’ to the
entire region.There were also precedents for ambitious construction projects with nearby
Dubai and Abu Dhabi having already built the world’s tallest tower building, aFerrari-branded
theme park and man-made palm-shaped islands.Oil-rich state investors were also very attractive
at a time when Madrid were realising the challenges of competing with Qatar backed Paris Saint
Germain and Abu-Dhabi owned Manchester City, and the resort island was just part of a multi-faceted
strategy in the region. Just two months after its announcement, Mourinho and the first team
travelled to Kuwait City for an exhibition game, for which the club reportedly received
a €3m appearance fee.The link to UAE continued to grow. October 2012 brought the official
launch of the Real Madrid Foundation Football Academy in Dubai. The following May,Emirates
airline was announced as the club’s new shirt sponsor, with Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed
Al Maktoum of Dubai a guest of honour back at the Bernabeu VIP suite.In September 2014,
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) became the club’s ‘official banking partner’. The
following month, Perez signed a €400 million naming rights deal with Abu Dhabi’s IPIC
oil company to pay for redevelopment of its Bernabeu stadium. By 2017, however, IPIC - who
ran into financial difficulties, with its chief executive prosecuted for fraud – had
pulled their funding. Nevertheless, at the time Madrid and the UAE were getting closer
and closer and the resort island, like an empire’s outpost, was to be the most vivid
symbol of the integration. Perez acclaimed it as “a strategic meeting place and a project
of unprecedented dimension located less than four hours flight away from two billion people.”RAK
Marjan Island Football CEO Armand De Rouge was even more bullish and bold about the future.
“The only problem we might face is selecting investors,” he told a press conference in
Abu Dhabi in March 2012. “There are already heaps of people who want to (get involved).”Ultimately,
that proved as illusory as the Ronaldo holograms; the project never developed in any meaningful,
concrete way. Just six months later, Madrid’s 2011/12 economic report included a rectification
in its official accounts as “Rak Marjan required more time to raise the funds necessary
to go ahead with the project.”“Building of the Real Madrid resort island won’t start
any time soon,” a spokesman from the RAK Investment Authority said in UAE-based Sports
Talk magazine in June 2013. “Plans are indefinitely on hold. We have been searching for funding,
but due to harsh economic times none has materialised. We haven’t totally abandoned the project,
but it will need fresh backers.”In September 2013, Reuters reported that the resort company
had never even bought the seafloor over which the island was supposed to have risen. Madrid’s
annual report, issued that same month, said the contract with RAK Marjan Island Football
had been “terminated” due to non-arrival of the payments.With Ras al-Khaimah now out
of the question, the talk was of keeping the project going but moving it to another part
of the UAE, where Madrid continued to do other lucrative business.That search for another
location for the resort may or may not have been realistic, but it never succeeded. Madrid
did win a court case against RAK Marjan Island Football in June 2015, however by that stage
the company had been declared bankrupt. Madrid’s accounts continued to include a related adjustment
of €5.8 million for the next three years, before it disappeared completely, suggesting
no money was ever recovered. Any talk of an officially branded resort island, anywhere
in the UAE, was quietly removed from the club’s website and official publications.Madrid were
well clear of any involvement by September 2016, when one of the project’s main initial
backers, Khater Massaad, was arrested in Saudi Arabia, with the Ras Al Khaimah government
having the previous year prosecuted the Lebanese-born businessman in absentia for a huge alleged
fraud.The idea of a Real Madrid branded tourist destination has not disappeared completely.
The club are continuing to do business in China, with the focus ofmuch of the club’s
commercial and strategic activity having switched from the gulf to the Far East. Maybe that
is where holographic Sergio Ramos and Karim Benzema will rise from the seabed and finally
deliver Perez's dream.