Tebas challenges Real Madrid over Santiago Bernabeu banner: ‘Are they going to explain this?’

Tebas challenges Real Madrid over Santiago Bernabeu banner: ‘Are they going to explain this?’ La Liga president Javier Tebas has challenged Real Madrid over an anti-Tebas banner displayed at the Santiago Bernabeu during Sunday’s match against Real Betis , questioning whether the club will distance itself from the message after previously describing criticism from journalists as independent opinion. The banner, displayed in the stadium’s south stand, read: “It’s not football, it’s Tebas and Negreira.”   Tebas responded on X, linking the protest to his ongoing dispute with Real Madrid over the club’s public criticism of refereeing and Spanish football’s governing institutions. The exchange is the latest response from the La Liga president to an increasingly bitter confrontation between him and Real Madrid, with the Negreira controversy and accusations of institutional bias continuing to dominate their public exchanges. Tebas questions Real Madrid’s position after Bernabeu protest The La Liga president’s response centred on whether Real Madrid would treat the banner as an opinion independent of the club, just as it had previously characterised comments from journalists outside the organisation. “Are they also going to explain this as an opinion unrelated to the club?” the La Liga president wondered in a post on X. Tebas subsequently expanded on his criticism in a lengthy statement, arguing that the banner reinforced the narrative he had previously attributed to voices associated with Madrid’s leadership. “It has taken just two days for events to prove me right. “In my post on 16 October, I identified Tomas Gonzalez-Martin, of El Debate, as the mouthpiece for Real Madrid’s management. “The club responded on that very same day, 16 October, with a statement citing the opinions of ‘journalists outside the club’, for which it claimed to bear no responsibility. “In my reply of 16 October, I asked them for something very specific: that they refute the comparison with Negreira that the journalist attributed to club sources, and the accusations that La Liga is disadvantaging them with the fixture list. “That they publish all their requests for changes and how many had been granted. THE FULL picture, including the accepted requests that undermine the narrative of persecution. “On 18 October, Real Madrid TV launched another attack against me, and its cheer squad – coordinated and supervised by the club – unfurled a banner reading: ‘It’s not football, it’s Tebas and Negreira’. “Are they going to explain this as an opinion unrelated to the club as well? The similarity to the narrative I exposed is plain to see.” Dispute over Real Madrid TV fuels confrontation The latest exchange comes amid a separate controversy over Tebas’s comparison of Real Madrid TV’s communication methods with Nazi-era propaganda techniques .  The La Liga president has refused to apologise , prompting criticism from Jose Manuel Rodriguez Uribes, president of Spain’s Higher Sports Council, who described the remarks as unacceptable and called for an apology to Madrid. Santiago Bernabeu protested against Javier Tebas. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images) Tebas has defended his criticism of the club’s television channel, which has repeatedly scrutinised refereeing decisions and questioned the conduct of Spanish football institutions.  Real Madrid, meanwhile, have maintained a confrontational stance in their public criticism of refereeing and the wider football establishment. Negreira references keep tensions alive The reference to Negreira is particularly significant because it invokes the controversy surrounding Barcelona’s payments to companies linked to former refereeing official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.  The matter has become a recurring point of contention in Spanish football, with Real Madrid among the clubs to have publicly scrutinised the case. By linking Tebas and Negreira in the stadium protest, the banner brought that controversy into the ongoing dispute between Madrid and the league president.  Understandably so, the presence of a banner in the stadium does not, by itself, establish that the club organised or endorsed its message.  Rather, the central question raised by Tebas is whether Real Madrid will publicly address the protest and clarify its position, as the confrontation between the two sides continues.