Florentino Pérez

Pérez attended the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He joined the Union of the Democratic Centre party in 1979, serving as a member of Madrid's city council. In 1986, Pérez ran as a candidate for the Democratic Reformist Party (Partido Reformista Democrático) and served as its secretary-general.

In 1993, Pérez was named vice chairman of OCP Construcciones. After the merger of OCP with Gines y Navarro into Actividades de Construcción y Servicios, S.A. (ACS) in 1997, he became chairman of the new company. As of 2018, Pérez leads ACS Group, Spain's largest construction company, and has an estimated net worth of US$2.5 billion.

In 1995, Pérez ran as a candidate for the presidency of Real Madrid against Ramón Mendoza and Santiago Gómez Pintado. Despite obtaining the highest number of signatures to endorse his candidacy, he came in second place.

In 2000, Pérez again ran as a candidate for presidency of Real Madrid, which he won with more than 55% of the votes, beating the incumbent president at that time, Lorenzo Sanz. Sanz assumed that the recently won UEFA Champions Leagues in 1998 and 2000 would give him enough credit to win the elections, but Pérez's campaign, once again highlighting the financial problems of the club and claims of mismanagement by the previous boards, proved otherwise. Pérez's promise to bring in Luís Figo from arch-rivals Barcelona also played a decisive role in the elections. Pérez was later re-elected in 2004 with 94.2% of the total votes.

Figo also marked the start of Pérez's policy to bring one of the best football players in the world to Real Madrid each season. The strategy was initially known as that of Zidanes y Pavones in which superstars would play alongside the Canteranos, but the players were soon popularly referred to as Galácticos. In 2001, Zinedine Zidane was signed from Juventus for a then-world record transfer fee of €77.5 million. Zidane was followed up by Ronaldo in 2002, David Beckham in 2003, Michael Owen in 2004, and Robinho for a short time in 2005. Initially, Pérez's policy worked to great success, as each new Galáctico had the squad built around them, and the team had a good balance between attack and defence. In his first years in office, Real Madrid won two Spanish championships and its record ninth UEFA Champions League. Pérez claimed success in clearing the club's debt; however, this was contradicted by director Ramón Calderón.

Several years after leaving Real, Fernando Hierro stated that Claude Makélélé had been the club's most important and least appreciated midfielder, saying: "The loss of Makélélé was the beginning of the end for Los Galácticos... …

In April 2021, Pérez was named the first chairman of the European Super League, a breakaway league involving some of Europe's largest football clubs. According to The New York Times, Pérez "had been the driving force behind much of it; it was, to some extent, his brainchild." Spearheaded by Pérez and Andrea Agnelli of Juventus, the Super League was in the works for three years; however, the final phases were rushed and the allegiance among the twelve clubs, instead of the original fifteen, seemed to have been forged under pressure. The announcement was poorly planned and the coalition, liable to break under pressure, came apart quickly. Pérez expressed hope that the new competition would "provide higher-quality matches and additional financial resources for the overall football pyramid", provide "significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments which will grow in line with league revenues", appeal to a new younger generation of football fans, and improve VAR and refereeing.

The 18 April announcement of the European Super League (ESL) received almost universal opposition from fans, players, managers, politicians and other clubs as well as UEFA, FIFA and national governments. Much of the criticism against the ESL was due to concerns about elitism and the lack of competitiveness within the competition, as it would have consisted of only high-ranking teams from a few European countries. Backlash against the announcement of the league's formation led to nine of the clubs involved, including all six of the English clubs, announcing their intention to withdraw. The remaining members of the ESL subsequently announced they would "reconsider the most appropriate steps to reshape the project" following the departure of the other clubs. Three days after its founding, the ESL announced that it was suspending its operations.

Commentators argued that the ESL could render domestic competitions as irrelevant and lower tier compared to the Super League, and it would undermine promotion and relegation systems; Pérez later countered this with claims that the ESL would have a system of promotion and relegation. …

Pérez married María de los Ángeles Sandoval Montero in 1970 and they had three children: Eduardo, Florentino, and María Ángeles. His wife died on 23 May 2012, aged 62, due to a heart attack.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pérez tested positive on 2 February 2021, but had no symptoms.