Real Madrid won 3-2 at Elche on Tuesday night with a Carlos Espi goal in the 91st minute, and almost nobody in Spain has spent Wednesday talking about it. The Real Madrid Ceuta shirt row that started in the tunnel at the Martinez Valero has taken over the news cycle instead, pulling in LaLiga president Javier Tebas, two political parties and a supporters’ club on the North African coast.
What the Real Madrid Ceuta shirt actually was
Both squads were due to walk out in white shirts reading “Todos somos caballas” – loosely, “we are all caballas”, the nickname for the people of Ceuta – in support of the Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast, following a large irregular crossing from Morocco in late July.
It was not a LaLiga initiative. As Marca explain, the shirts came from the Valencian business association AVE, whose president is Vicente Boluda – himself a former Real Madrid president. LaLiga approved it and visiting sides were invited to join in. Barcelona declined at Levante. Real Betis’ Ez Abde wore it at Villarreal and was abused online for doing so.
Madrid accepted but left the decision to individual players. Elche’s squad had their shirts before emerging; Madrid’s were handed out in the tunnel. Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior pulled theirs on only as far as the chest, so the message was not legible, and removed them before the handshake line. Ibrahima Konate simply carried his, per Mundo Deportivo.
The club’s position: nobody is being punished
Despite calls in Spain for the three to be sanctioned, Real Madrid have no intention of doing so. The club’s view, as reported by Mundo Deportivo, is that nobody can be compelled either to wear a shirt or not to, that the great majority of the squad did display the message, and that the club has shown its own support for Ceuta at the Bernabeu. Internally it is being treated as a non-event.
Tebas: “the shirt folded is like going out without it”
LaLiga’s president does not agree. Speaking at a conference in Huesca, Tebas said he thought the gesture was “very bad”, according to Mundo Deportivo. “Real Madrid is a Spanish entity and the participation of the entire squad in this type of initiative responds to an institutional act, a club act, and not a personal act where an opinion has to be given,” he argued, adding that campaigns cleared by LaLiga should not be left to players’ preferences.
“The player has to go out with the shirt. Because going out with the shirt folded is like going out without it.” Tebas rejected the idea that the shirts were political, and called the abuse aimed at Abde “collateral damage”.
The row spreads beyond football
By Wednesday morning it had reached the Congress of Deputies. The PP’s spokesperson Ester Munoz said the episode “made me feel quite ashamed”; Vox’s Jose Maria Figaredo said the three were “very free to do what they want”, while Spaniards were equally free to feel indignant. Cristina Valido of Coalicion Canaria took the opposite line, asking for politics to be kept out of football and freedom of conscience respected.
The sharpest reaction came from Ceuta itself. The Pena Madridista de Ceuta will write to the club to register its unhappiness. “At first we could not believe it, that three Real Madrid players would hide a shirt in support of our city,” president Miguel Angel Montano told Mundo Deportivo. “There is no racism, there is no politics, only support for Ceuta and the caballas.”
Nobody at Madrid has said a word
None of the three players has commented. Vinicius’ only post-match message concerned his finishing after another blank: “The goals will come back, I cannot miss so many.” Jose Mourinho was asked about the football instead, coining the word “facilitismo” for a side that led 0-2 and still needed Espi in the 91st minute – the same slackness that drew criticism of Madrid’s second halves after Rayo. On Sunday they face Atletico Madrid in the derby, carrying three points from Elche and a week of questions they did not want.
