But Perez has shown he is just as happy playing the role of villain, as he discarded coach Vicente del Bosque and captain Fernando Hierro less than 24 hours after the team had clinched the Spanish league title on Sunday.

"This unanimous decision by the club's board will seem hard and cruel," Perez recognised on Tuesday. "People have said that we have no hearts.

"We are running the most prestigious sporting club in the world, though, with hundreds of millions of people behind us, and we have to take decisions with our heads, not our hearts."

Perez, head of the hugely successful construction company ACS, swept to power in Real's presidential election in July 2000 thanks in large part to the deal he had done to sign Figo from Barcelona.

He added Zidane and Ronaldo over the next two seasons and under Del Bosque the team added a ninth European Cup and another league title.

For next term, Perez has already settled on Manchester United's Beckham, with the England captain due to be presented at the Bernabeu next week.

His transition will be eased by the appointment on Wednesday of Carlos Queiroz, Manchester United's assistant manager and formerly coach of Portugal and South Africa, as Del Bosque's replacement at Real.

RUTHLESS DECISIONS

The titles and the transfer scoops have combined to give Perez an extraordinary level of popularity among much of the Spanish sports media and the majority of Real Madrid fans.

The president has not had the best of relationships with the squad, however, particularly after taking a series of increasingly ruthless decisions in the past 12 months.

The first whispers of a fall-out between club directors and the playing staff came last year, when Perez was finalising the negotiations that would bring Ronaldo to the Bernabeu.

On August 30, Real Madrid won the European Super Cup with a sparkling 3-1 victory over Feyenoord.

Some of the shine was taken off the victory, though, by the club's order that Fernando Morientes could not play in case he was needed as a makeweight in the Ronaldo deal.

The Ronaldo transfer went through the next day but Raul and Hierro, furious at the way Morientes had been used, came out to defend the striker in public in what was seen as a challenge to the authority of Perez and his sporting director Jorge Valdano.

A plan to parade the Super Cup trophy around the Bernabeu was cancelled and Hierro, asked for his opinion on Ronaldo, offered the barbed reminder that "footballers are not merchandise".

Perez next drew the ire of the players with the timing of the Beckham signing, as news broke just a few days before the decisive final league match of the season.

The players were furious that their preparations for the match were disrupted by the scores of British journalists who descended on the club's training ground, taking the focus away from the match and harassing the players and their families.

WIDENING RIFT

Around the same time, Del Bosque admitted to having an "intuition" that he would not be kept on as coach, while popular midfielder Guti lost patience altogether and said the arrival of Beckham effectively meant he was being forced out.

The players made their feelings known in a long series of interviews during which practically all of them offered their support to Del Bosque and Guti.

The rift between the team and their employers widened still further after the team had clinched the league title with their win over Athletic Bilbao.

Hierro, speaking on behalf of the players, refused to lead the team out for a second lap of honour at the Bernabeu, or to speak to the media.

There are undoubtedly good practical reasons for not renewing Hierro's contract.

It looked as though the years were catching up with the 35-year-old centre-back last season, particularly in the team's Champions League semi-final defeat by Juventus.

Perez insisted that the decision was not linked directly to the players' rebellion but it was clear that Perez, uncompromising business operator that he is, could not accept the challenge to his authority.

"It's absurd to think that 14 years of history can be wiped out in two minutes," Perez said in reference to the long-serving Hierro.

"I won't pretend I liked what happened after the game on Sunday, though. The club demands high standards from everyone, including the players."