Real Madrid demand La Liga president resign over Goebbels comparison

Real Madrid have again demanded the resignation of the president of La Liga after he compared the club’s efforts to discredit referees with the propaganda techniques of Nazi Germany.

Javier Tebas lashed out at Madrid on Friday on social media with a long post that criticised how its club television channel says referees hurt its chances of winning. The channel regularly runs reels of what it considers gross errors by match officials who are set to work upcoming games for the 15-time European champions.

Tebas compared the tactic with those used by Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany during the second world war.

“The executive of Real Madrid has an orchestra of mouthpieces and Real Madrid leads the way,” Tebas wrote. “Its script is always the same: select plays that favor it, repeat the alleged affront, increase suspicion and name enemies. It reminds one of the propaganda techniques that Goebbels used.”

Tebas added: “The comparison is with the techniques, not with the ideology or, of course, with Madrid fans.”

Madrid responded by saying in a statement that Tebas, who has clashed several times over the years with the club president, Florentino Pérez, was unfit to hold his job representing Spain’s top clubs. Madrid also demanded his “immediate resignation”.

“Javier Tebas’s repeated conduct demonstrates a lack of neutrality, respect, and impartiality incompatible with his institutional responsibilities,” it said. “His constant attacks on Real Madrid and those demanding transparency and regeneration represent, in our club’s view, a genuine scourge for Spanish football.”

The head coach, José Mourinho, has also voiced complaints that Madrid, who hold a record 36 Spanish league titles, are regularly hurt by referees.

In September, Madrid demanded Tebas step down after he criticised the club for attacking the refereeing team in the 2-1 loss at Atlético Madrid.

In Friday’s statement, Madrid repeated the complaint that Tebas has not done enough over the ongoing judicial probe into Barcelona’s alleged payments to an official on the refereeing committee of the Spanish soccer federation.

Meanwhile, Spain’s football federation will take its ⁠case to the court of arbitration for sport after Fifa rejected its appeal against sanctions imposed over Islamophobic chants by supporters during a match against Egypt ⁠in March.

Fifa fined the ⁠federation $20,000 (£15,000) and ordered ​it to close at least 15% of the available seats for Spain’s next home friendly. The sanctions relate to incidents at the RCDE Stadium near Barcelona, home ⁠of La Liga club Espanyol, where some Spain fans chanted, “If you don’t jump, you’re a Muslim” during a World Cup warm-up match that ended in a 0-0 draw.

The RFEF argued that the word Muslim was “neither insulting nor pejorative”, adding the fans’ conduct should be assessed under Fifa’s article 17, which covers political, ideological, religious or offensive messages, rather than article 15, which deals with discrimination and racist abuse.

However, Fifa’s disciplinary committee rejected that argument, saying article 15 does not require the explicit use of a ‌slur and that a term can be discriminatory when used in context as “an insult, taunt or marker of inferiority”.