La Liga President Faces Sanctions Over Remarks About Real Madrid

The Spanish National Sports Council referred Javier Tebas, president of Spain’s La Liga, to the local sports tribunal after he likened Real Madrid’s media strategy to Nazi propaganda. The council asked the tribunal to assess whether these remarks violated rules protecting the status and ethics of sport. Tebas could face disciplinary action for comparing Real Madrid’s communication tactics to those of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In a statement, the council said it had referred the case to the administrative tribunal after Tebas made the comparison in a post on X on October 16. The tribunal must determine whether Tebas’s statements constitute a serious offense under Spain’s 1990 Sports Law, which covers “notorious and public acts that harm the dignity and integrity of sport.” The council said, “Preserving the values that make sport a space for respect, coexistence, and fair play is essential.” The royal club had called for the resignation of Tebas, 64, after he criticized efforts to discredit refereeing in Spain. Tebas had said that Real Madrid’s internal television channel often implies that referees try to prevent the club from winning, and described the tactics as “reminiscent of the propaganda mechanisms exploited by Goebbels.” He later sought to clarify that he was comparing “those propaganda methods,” not Nazi ideology. On Thursday, the league president reiterated in another X post that his comment “distinguished between propaganda methods and ideology,” and questioned why Real Madrid’s accusations of “corruption in the refereeing system” do not affect “the dignity and integrity of sport,” writing, “Doesn’t that harm clubs, referees, and millions of fans? Or are these values not worth public defense unless someone responds to these attacks?”