Real Madrid Demand Tebas Resign After Goebbels Comparison

Real Madrid demanded on Friday, October 16, 2026 that Javier Tebas resign at once as president of LaLiga and as a vice-president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation. The demand came in a club statement issued later in the day, hours after Tebas had used social media to attack the way Real Madrid TV covers refereeing.

Tebas was replying to articles by two journalists in El Debate who said he and LaLiga were acting against the club. He wrote that the club leadership runs a set of friendly voices, with its television channel in front, and he described a repeated method: pick the plays that help the case, repeat the complaint, raise suspicion and name enemies. He said that method recalled the propaganda techniques used by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany. He added that he was comparing techniques, not ideology, and not the Madrid fan base.

The club response

Real Madrid called the comparison intolerable and extraordinarily serious. The club said the clarification did not make the remark acceptable for a man who holds two of the most senior jobs in Spanish football. It accused Tebas of repeated attacks on the club, its leadership and its channel, and said his conduct showed a lack of neutrality, respect and impartiality that does not fit his institutional duties.

The club also objected to Tebas building an attack from the work of journalists who are not part of Real Madrid. It said he had assigned the club responsibility for third parties and had used their reporting to question its actions.

The Negreira case sits behind the row

The statement did not stop at the social media post. Real Madrid tied the dispute to the Negreira case, which concerns payments made by FC Barcelona over many years to a former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees. The club said the two bodies where Tebas holds senior office had failed to respond with the seriousness the case needs.

For that reason, the club said, it had gone directly to UEFA to ask for a full investigation into the payments and for steps to protect the integrity of competitions. It also called for a complete overhaul of the refereeing system and of the federation structures for governance, management, oversight and discipline.

A long feud, a new low

Tebas, 64, has led LaLiga since 2013. He is elected by the 42 professional clubs in the top two divisions and was re-elected unopposed in 2023 for a term that runs until 2027. A demand from one club does not remove him from either post.

The two sides have clashed for years over refereeing, television money, governance and the proposed Super League. In September 2026 Real Madrid already called for a new LaLiga president, after Tebas described the club complaints about refereeing as a smokescreen for problems on the pitch. That earlier row followed a league defeat at Atletico Madrid.

Friday brought a pointed contrast. Hours before the statement, LaLiga had confirmed Real Madrid as one of six clubs that will sit on the league Executive Committee this season. By the end of the day the same club was asking the league president to leave both of his jobs at once. No resignation had been announced when the reports were published, and Reuters said it had sought comment from El Debate.