Despite the Champions League final performance and having established himself as a valuable player in his first year in Madrid (including being listed alongside Redondo in Real Madrid's technical director Jose Martinez/Pirri's end of season official report as one of the two "untouchables" around whom the team should be built for the coming campaign), the arrival of a new club president in Florentino Pérez, closely followed by former Barcelona superstar midfielder Luís Figo in a club-record transfer, saw the club forced to sell several key players to reduce debt. Fernando Redondo, Nicolas Anelka, Christian Karembeu and McManaman were suddenly told they were surplus to requirements before the start of the 2000–01 season and were sold. When McManaman refused to leave unlike the others, manager Vicente del Bosque told McManaman that he had "little chance of playing this year", and in case he did not understand his position, the club also declined to give him a squad number for the forthcoming season. With the club already in debt, and having just spent another £37 million on Figo, the board were keen to cash in on McManaman and remove his $4.5 million salary from the wage bill. McManaman, however, with an iron-clad contract until 2004, declined to leave and instead stated his determination to win back his place in the team.