Calderón Taken into Custody at New York Airport
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Ramón Calderón was held in police custody at a New York airport after his name was mistaken for a person who is on the security services' list of suspicious people.
The Real Madrid president was visiting the United States to with wife when he was stopped and asked to accompany the police after being picked up at JFK Airport.
Calderón is reported to have been on his way to visit his daughter, according to Punt Radio, when he was stopped and taken to a holding room.
An administrative error has been blamed for the mix-up, but Calderón still had to spend three hours in custody while the authorities checked out his identity.
The Spanish Minister of the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, who is a good friend of the Madrid supremo's wife and a big fan of the club, was called into help sort out the mix-up.
Everything was cleared up after agents were able to prove that his surname matched a person registered as 'suspicious' by the police.
When that had happened data confirming Calderón's innocence, including photos, were sent from the nearest consulate and he was allowed to go free. -
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They should have locked him up longer.
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NY cops are clowns.
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Calderón: 'I Was Concerned I Would Miss The Opera'
Ramón Calderón was in good spirits after being held by police at JFK Airport in New York and admitted that he was only worried about missing the opera.
"They acted appropriately, " he explained. "The only bad thing that happened was they refused to listen to me.
"Of course, I told them a thousand times I wasn't the person they were looking for. I told them I was president of Real Madrid, but they wouldn't listen.
"I must say I am disappointed by some of the reporting of this. I've already seen on the internet some claims I was stopped over 'strange circumstances'. What rubbish! What happened to me, has happened to many people travelling from Spain. You just have to laugh about it."
Calderón was in New York to see Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor but arrived moments before the performance started, although he was in time for dinner afterwards.
"The only concern I had was my wife and I would miss the opera," he continued. "But we managed to get to the theatre five minutes before it began. We had dinner with Placido Domingo, a great Madridista, afterwards and joked about the incident."