Real Madrid have demanded the immediate resignation of La Liga president Javier Tebas after he compared the club’s criticism of referees and its use of Real Madrid TV to propaganda techniques associated with Nazi official Joseph Goebbels.
According to the BBC, Tebas made the remarks in a post on X, accusing Real Madrid’s management of directing media criticism of referees and repeatedly promoting claims that the club had been wronged. The club called his comparison “deeply offensive” and “morally repugnant”.
Tebas wrote that Real Madrid’s management “directs an orchestra of mouthpieces” and that its television channel “leads the singing”. He said the club’s approach was to “select the plays that suit them, repeat the grievance, feed the suspicion, and point fingers at the enemies”.
He added: “That method recalls propaganda mechanisms exploited by Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda: systematic repetition, construction of an enemy, and subordination of facts to the narrative.”
Tebas later said his comparison was with “those propaganda techniques” and “not with an ideology”. Real Madrid rejected that clarification, saying it did not lessen what the club called the “institutionally unworthy nature” of his statements.
In its response, Real Madrid said: “It is absolutely intolerable and extraordinarily serious that someone holding two positions of utmost responsibility in Spanish football resorts to a comparison with the propaganda methods of the Nazi regime to discredit our club, its management and its television.”
The club demanded Tebas resign both as La Liga president and as vice-president of the Spanish Football Association. It described the remarks as another episode in what it called his repeated attacks on Real Madrid, its president and its media outlets.
Tebas and Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez have clashed before, including over the club’s support for the proposed European Super League and its complaints about refereeing. In September, Tebas criticised Real Madrid after it alleged a refereeing conspiracy against the club.
—By Adegboyega Adeleye
