In 2000, when Real Madrid was 98 years old, FIFA voted it the best football club of the 20th century. At the same time, the International Federation of Football History and Statistics considered it in the same category in 2000, 2002, 2014 and 2017. The centenary club’s list of achievements speaks for itself of the successes of a world-famous football team: 35 times Spanish La Liga champion, 14 times European Champions League champion and a long etcetera. Dubai Parks and Resorts owns and operates a diverse portfolio of theme parks, shopping malls and hotels and resorts, including Legoland Dubai, Motiongate Dubai and Bollywood Parks Dubai, with a total area of 2,300,000 m2 of land in the United Arab Emirates. Last November, the football club announced the signing of an agreement with Dubai Parks and Resorts to design and build in the Middle East, the world’s first Real Madrid theme park.
This is not the first time the football club has harboured plans to create a theme park related to its history. As Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg recount in the book Messi Vs Ronaldo (Mariner Books, New York, 2022), club president Florentino Pérez even met during the 2017/18 season with former executives from The Walt Disney Company to explore the possibility of moving the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium into a theme park. Plans had reached such an advanced stage that there was reportedly already a draft design for a rollercoaster ride inspired by the trajectory of Zinedine Zidane’s 2002 volley that led the football team to that year’s Champions League triumph. However, the club’s president decided to earmark funds for the modernisation of the Santiago Bernabéu, which is currently underway, and the theme park project was ruled out.
Now, with the signing of this agreement between Real Madrid and Dubai Parks and Resorts, the club will have a theme park inspired by its century-long history by the end of 2023, when it is scheduled to open. When it opens, the club said in its statement, sports fans from around the world “will have the opportunity to participate in interactive experiences (…), such as a museum, attractions and football skill games, and points of sale for souvenirs of the glorious history of our team”.
Sources: Real Madrid, Wikipedia, Superdeporte, Mundo Deportivo, Dubai Parks and Resorts. Images: Real Madrid and public domain.
