Real Madrid demand Tebas’s resignation after Goebbels comparison

Madrid calls for La Liga chief to quit

Real Madrid have demanded the “immediate resignation” of Javier Tebas after the La Liga president compared the club’s communications strategy with propaganda methods used by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda.

In a post on social media on Friday, Tebas criticised Real Madrid’s use of its in-house television channel to highlight what it considers refereeing errors. He said the club’s management “directs an orchestra of mouthpieces” and that its approach was to “select the plays that suit them, repeat the grievance, feed the suspicion, and point fingers at the enemies”.

Tebas said the approach recalled propaganda mechanisms employed by Goebbels, including “systematic repetition” and the construction of an enemy. He later stressed that his comparison concerned “those propaganda techniques” and not Nazi ideology or Real Madrid supporters.

Madrid rejected the clarification. The club described Tebas’s remarks as “deeply offensive” and “morally repugnant”, and said his conduct showed a lack of neutrality and impartiality. It also called on him to leave his roles as La Liga president and vice-president of the Spanish football federation.

The dispute is the latest in a series of clashes between Tebas and Madrid, whose president is Florentino Pérez. The club has repeatedly challenged Tebas over his public criticism of its complaints about refereeing and has also accused him of failing to act adequately over the ongoing judicial investigation into Barcelona’s alleged payments to a former refereeing official.