Real Madrid: Javier Tebas reignites hostilities with Florentino Pérez

Javier Tebas has once again targeted Real Madrid and Pérez, while warning of a two-tier European football

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Real Madrid: Javier Tebas reignites hostilities with Florentino Pérez

Javier Tebas has once again targeted Real Madrid and Florentino Pérez, while warning of a two-tier European football.

The tension between Javier Tebas and Real Madrid has entered a new chapter. Speaking at the First National Conference on Journalism and Sport held in Galicia, the president of LaLiga once again challenged the vision of football defended by Florentino Pérez and the Madrid club.

In comments reported by Spanish daily AS, Tebas described Real Madrid as “Spain’s most rebellious team”. The phrase sums up years of disagreements between the two sides over the governance of Spanish football, the distribution of revenue and, above all, the future of European competitions.

Tebas puts the threat of “another Super League” back at the centre of the debate

The Spanish executive also returned to the Super League project promoted for several years by Florentino Pérez. “Another Super League is gradually taking shape”, he warned, believing that the current evolution of European football could gradually lead to a system favouring clubs with the greatest resources.

Yet the context changed significantly in 2026. In February, Real Madrid, UEFA and European Football Clubs announced an agreement in principle aimed in particular at ending their legal disputes linked to the former Super League project. The project as it was launched in 2021 has therefore lost its main institutional backing, but Tebas believes that the risk of two-tier football has not disappeared.

Real Madrid and Tebas had already clashed in September

This latest statement comes only a few weeks after another particularly heated dispute. At the end of September, Real Madrid published a lengthy statement against Javier Tebas, accusing the LaLiga chief of using his position to publicly attack the club following the Madrid side’s criticism of refereeing.

Tebas, for his part, defends a model in which the economic powerhouses remain integrated into a broader whole. He compared clubs such as Real Madrid and FC Barcelona to “locomotives”, while stressing the need to preserve the “carriages” — that is, the smaller clubs that contribute to the balance of competitions.

💥 Javier Tebas repart à l’attaque contre le Real Madrid ! Le président de LaLiga a qualifié le club merengue d’« équipe la plus rebelle d’Espagne » et s’inquiète toujours de la vision du football défendue par Florentino Pérez. 👀 Tebas estime notamment qu’une nouvelle forme de Super Ligue se met progressivement en place et redoute l’apparition d’un football européen « à deux vitesses ». 🗣️ « Nous avons aussi besoin de wagons », a-t-il lancé après avoir comparé le Real et le Barça aux locomotives du football espagnol. 👉 Le conflit entre Tebas et le Real peut-il vraiment s’apaiser ? 👀
— Foot Mercato (@footmercato) October 6, 2026

TV rights at the heart of his defence of the Spanish model

The LaLiga president also defended the current system for distributing television rights in Spain. In his view, the competitiveness of a league cannot rely solely on the commercial power of its two or three biggest clubs. The stated objective remains to keep the economic gap sufficiently under control to allow the other teams to remain competitive.

However, Tebas did not wish to intervene in the controversy over ticket prices for the next Clásico, believing that this issue depends directly on the clubs. Nevertheless, his latest attack confirms that, despite the institutional easing surrounding the former Super League, the fundamental disagreement with Florentino Pérez over the economic and political model of European football is far from being resolved.