The weeks-long feud between La Liga president Javier Tebas and Real Madrid reached a new peak on Friday, as the club called for Tebas’ “immediate resignation” after Madrid’s media compared him to Nazi propaganda poster Joseph Goebbels.
In a lengthy post on Friday, Tebas accused Real Madrid of using propaganda to shape the club and invoked Goebbels in his comparison. The accusation resulted from Tebas shouting what he believed to be press coverage on the Spanish outlet “El Debate” that was too favorable to the club, and echoed opinions about referees and scheduling on Real Madrid TV.
“The Real administration of Madrid directs the orchestra of orchestras and leads the song on Real Madrid TV. Their score is always the same: choose stories that suit them, repeat pain, feed suspicion, point fingers at enemies,” Tebas wrote. “That method recalls the propaganda mechanism used by Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda: systematic repetition, construction of the enemy, and the subordination of facts to the narrative.”
Even with the cry of the wild, Thebes tried repeatedly that he did not make the accusation about Goebbels’ ideology: “The comparison is with the propaganda arts, not with the doctrine or, of course, with the Madridista ledges of the base”.
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Real Madrid issued a harsh statement shortly after, calling it “absolutely intolerable and too serious” for Thebes to evoke the Nazi regime.
“The statement that he does not refer to Nazi ideology does not mitigate the highly offensive, morally repugnant, and institutionally unworthy nature of the statements,” the team said.
Madrid also pointed out what the club believes is an example of widespread criticism from the league boss, calling it “a real scourge for Spanish football”.
“These statements constitute yet another event in the frequent attacks by Javier Tebas against Real Madrid, its president, and its exit from the media. It also opposes that questions, information, or opinions from journalists end up directing our accusations to the club, attributing to us the actions of third parties for which we bear no responsibility,” he said. “The repeated action of Javier Tebas shows a lack of neutrality, respect and fairness, contrary to his institutional duties.
“For all these reasons, Real Madrid CF considers that the revised statements and behavior of Javier Tebas would be unacceptable in all European sports institutions, which are governed by the principles of respect, neutrality and integrity, and would alienate him from the institution from holding the positions he holds.”
Madrid then ended his statement by saying he “rejects” the resignation of Tebas, who is both president of La Liga and vice president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
After the initial exchange, Thebes continued to dig in with frequent long shots in the hours that followed. In one post, Real Madrid said that in its request to be neutral, the club is “confounding neutrality with independence”. In another way, he again defends his comparison with Goebbels by repeating that he does not include propagandistic teaching in the comparison.
“I’ve lost count of the times that in thirteen years the leaders of Real Madrid have demanded my resignation or tried to alienate me,” Tebas said in his first response to Madrid’s statement. “Today is different. There are still no answers.”
This is the second time in the past month that Real Madrid has called on Tebas to resign. The club made a similar appeal in September, citing what it called “inappropriate and long-term behavior” from the league president.
Some of the animosity stemmed from the Negreira case, an ongoing problem over alleged corruption at FC Barcelona that prompted Real Madrid, as Barcelona’s La Liga rival, to take action. Earlier this month, Madrid sent UEFA a file reportedly 50,000 pages long with evidence in the case.
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Tebas mentioned the case in a statement on Friday, at the instigation of Madrid to call it “especially about” Tebas’ insistence on raising questions about the club and its media arm.