La Liga Complains About Real Madrid Fans Due to “El Clasico”

Lebanon Today

La Liga issued an official statement on Tuesday regarding the recent El Clásico match between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Barcelona suffered a defeat against Real Madrid last Sunday at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, with a score of two goals to one, in the tenth round of La Liga.

La Liga announced that it has filed a complaint with the Competition Committee of the Spanish Federation and the Anti-Violence Committee.

According to the League’s statement, the complaint includes chants that encourage violence or contain offensive or unacceptable content in football matches, which were witnessed in the El Clásico match.

The statement explained that 35 minutes before the start of the match, and in the second minute, a group of Real Madrid fans chanted collective insults against Barcelona for approximately ten seconds, in addition to another chant before the start of the match: “Being a Barcelona fan is like being stupid.”

According to the Catalan newspaper “Sport”, the La Liga complaint did not include any other chants against the Catalan team and its fans, but eyewitnesses stated that they heard other chants such as “Curse Catalonia and anyone Catalan.”

La Liga also expressed its condemnation of the chants that targeted Barcelona goalkeeper Juan Garcia during the Espanyol and Elche match.

The League revealed in its statement that in the 35th minute of the match, a group of fans chanted “We want Juan’s head” collectively and in an organized manner for approximately 20 seconds, in reference to Barcelona goalkeeper Juan Garcia, in addition to an offensive chant against Barcelona.

It is worth mentioning that Garcia decided to end his contract with Espanyol last summer, taking advantage of a release clause, and decided to move to Barcelona.

After the end of the match, the tension moved from the stands to the field. As soon as the referee blew his whistle, clashes broke out between the players of the two teams due to offensive statements made by Lamine Yamal, the star of Barcelona, before the match.

According to the Spanish newspaper “Marca”, it started when Dani Carvajal, the captain of Real Madrid, approached Yamal after the match and said to him: “If you talk a lot, you have to bear the consequences.”

Yamal responded to Carvajal by pointing to a number of Real Madrid players, saying: “I’m waiting for you outside.”

The newspaper continued: “Vinicius immediately intervened and indicated to Yamal that he (talks a lot), to which Yamal replied that he was waiting for him at the dressing rooms to clash with him.”

Vinicius then actually set off towards Yamal, before the players intervened to calm the situation.

The newspaper pointed out that Xabi Alonso, the coach of Real Madrid, ordered his players to return to the middle of the field to celebrate the victory over Barcelona.

The final minutes of the El Clásico match between Real Madrid and Barcelona witnessed some tension inside the stadium and on the benches, as the atmosphere became more heated in stoppage time.

The clashes began after a strong tackle that led to Pedri Gonzalez, a Barcelona player, receiving a red card, after receiving a second yellow card, leaving the field in the tenth minute of the second half’s stoppage time.

The events did not stop there, as altercations broke out between members of the technical staff and players of the two teams near the technical area, leading to a state of chaos on the sidelines, before the refereeing staff intervened to calm the situation.

After the referee blew the final whistle, the tension renewed again following a verbal altercation between Thibaut Courtois and Lamine Yamal, before the players of the two teams intervened, and the situation turned into a clash between several elements, including Antonio Rudiger and Raphinha, who were present in the vicinity of the events despite being outside the list.

These events reflect the extent of the tension and emotion that dominated the atmosphere until the last moments of El Clásico, in a match characterized by intense competition, physical struggle, and psychological pressure until the end.

Yamal’s statements sparked angry reactions inside the Real Madrid dressing room, where sources close to the team stated that a state of intense anger gripped the players, especially the senior leaders, who considered that what Yamal said harms the reputation and history of the club.

However, this anger quickly turned into an additional incentive, as some reports indicated that the Catalan youngster’s words became a “motivational incentive” before the awaited confrontation.

Rather, some Spanish journalists quoted one of the Real Madrid players as saying that captain Dani Carvajal intends to speak with Yamal after the match, in a dialogue that “will not be entirely friendly,” reflecting the extent of the tension that one sentence caused in the Madrid camp.

In contrast, some Catalan newspapers tried to downplay the importance of the crisis, considering that Yamal’s statements “were a joke that he did not express well,” and that the media hype was inflated due to the historical sensitivity between the two clubs.

The Spanish newspaper “Mundo Deportivo” revealed what happened in the Real Madrid dressing room following Yamal’s statements, where Lamine’s comments were considered “stupid” and “disrespectful” and reflect a negative image of his personality.

The newspaper confirmed that the Real Madrid administration rejected Yamal’s comments, and that it intends to hold a conversation with the Barcelona player, and Dani Carvajal, the captain of Real Madrid, will undertake this task after the end of the match between the two teams at the Santiago Bernabéu.

The newspaper pointed out that the “Merengues” consider the Barcelona player’s statements to be “disrespectful,” whether they are directed at Real Madrid or any other first-class club.

In addition, Real Madrid realizes that these statements issued by the Barcelona player threaten the great harmony within the Spanish national team.

Most neutral analyses in the Spanish press believe that what the player said cannot be separated from the new digital reality of football, where sport intersects with entertainment, and players quickly become media figures, especially when they appear in informal digital content as happened with Ibai Llanos.

In this scene, Lamine Yamal seems to be a contemporary model of a new generation of players living between two worlds: the world of the pitch that requires focus and discipline, and the world of the Internet that tempts with appearance and controversy.

Perhaps he has not yet realized that the distance between the sensational statement and the loss of public respect is very short in modern football, and that what is said in a moment of emotion can haunt him for years.