Real Madrid have called for Javier Tebas to resign as La Liga president after he compared the club’s campaign against refereeing decisions with propaganda techniques used by Nazi Germany during the second world war.
Tebas criticised the club on social media on Friday over their use of Real Madrid TV to criticise refereeing decisions. The channel regularly publishes controversial videos condemning match officials.
He compared it to the strategy used by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister.
“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.”
The club responded by demanding his immediate resignation. They accused Tebas of repeatedly attacking Madrid for demanding greater transparency in Spanish football, and claimed that his conduct did not fit his office.
“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.”
There is a long-running conflict between the Spanish champions and the league chief. Madrid have repeatedly accused him of being biased against them.
Last month, the club criticised Tebas after he spoke out against their criticism of the referee who officiated the Madrid derby. They are also at daggers drawn over the ongoing investigation into alleged payments by Barcelona to a former official on the Spanish football federation’s refereeing committee.
