Pérez wins: the Higher Sports Council stuns Tebas, telling him to apologise to Real Madrid

Tebas's remarks go beyond the bounds of legitimate criticism

Jose Manuel Rodriguez Uribes, president of Spain's Higher Sports Council, has called on Javier Tebas, president of the LaLiga association, to retract his remarks and apologise to Real Madrid, after he compared the media methods of the club's channel to those used by Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister in Nazi Germany.

The newspaper AS published Uribes' comments, made to the Spanish news agency during an event on Saturday in Manises, in the city of Valencia.

Uribes said: "The comparison Tebas made is unacceptable, and I call on him to retract his remarks and apologise to Real Madrid."

For the Higher Sports Council's most senior official, Tebas went well past the limits of legitimate criticism, and the office he holds makes it worse.

He explained: "I believe that freedom of expression in Spain, which is a fundamental pillar of democracy, enjoys a very wide margin, indeed an extremely wide one, but it does not under any circumstances extend to referring to Nazism and Goebbels when speaking about one of the clubs in the Spanish league."

Then came the sting. "On top of that, these remarks came from the president of the association himself, which doubles the responsibility."

Criticism is part of football, Uribes accepts. The comparison, in his view, crossed a line.

He said: "I believe, from an ethical and political standpoint, and from the perspective of a sense of responsibility, that the matter involves an enormous exaggeration, and I think Tebas should apologise to Real Madrid."

Under Florentino Perez, Uribes noted, the club carries Spanish football's name around the world. Tying it to one of the darkest chapters in European history is, he said, entirely unacceptable.

Lawyers at Spain's Higher Sports Council are now looking at the matter too.

Uribes confirmed that he has instructed the relevant bodies to study whether the comments by the president of the Spanish league association could carry any disciplinary consequences.

Tebas has defended the comparison. He accuses Real Madrid's channel of churning out content in which the club always plays the victim, cherry-picking whatever feeds that sense of grievance while stripping out the context around events.