Real Madrid members’ rights questioned over new disciplinary rules

Real Madrid has been accused of creating an internal system that could punish members and season-ticket holders for expressing opinions about the club, including outside the stadium.

Spanish lawyer Cesar Romero de la Osa Martinez raised the objection after examining new social discipline regulations published on Real Madrid’s official website. He described the rules as establishing an unprecedented form of surveillance that could allow the club to take action against supporters over their private views.

The debate at Real Madrid has therefore moved beyond transfer targets and predicted line-ups for the new season, with concerns now focused on freedom of expression within the club.

Romero’s criticism, reported by Spanish newspaper Sport, centres on two sections of the regulations. Article 9.7 defines as a serious offence any “disrespect and/or abuse, through actions, gestures or words, directed at representatives of the club”.

Article 10.18 goes further by covering “any act and/or verbal and/or written statement likely to undermine the respect, dignity and image of the club and/or the people who make it up”.

The lawyer argues that the broad wording could be used to target opinions protected under the Spanish constitution under the pretext of defending Real Madrid’s reputation. In his view, conduct that amounts to defamation should be dealt with by the courts and police, rather than by an internal disciplinary committee established by a football club.

Romero also criticised the mechanism that gives a club disciplinary committee the ability to monitor what members write on social media and impose precautionary measures against them. He referred to the system as “social inquisitions”.

He warned that a member could lose their membership for years simply for criticising the board or the club president. Romero described that possibility as a “blatant violation of the law” and said it conflicted with fundamental principles of the Spanish legal system, including the presumption of innocence, legality and proportionality.

A member’s status and access to the club could therefore be affected not only by conduct at a match but also by comments made away from the stadium, according to the lawyer’s interpretation of the published regulations.

“No advanced and democratic society can allow those who run a football team to suppress the opinions of its supporters,” Romero said, comparing the alleged practices with surveillance methods used by authoritarian regimes.

He has formally called on the Ministry of Education, the Spanish National Sports Council and La Liga to intervene urgently to prevent clubs from adopting internal regulations he described as “arbitrary and illegal”.

Romero has also asked the Spanish Data Protection Agency to investigate which body is responsible for collecting, storing and analysing supporters’ personal opinions. He questioned whether monitoring such information is lawful without clear authorisation.

The lawyer ended his statement with a direct message to Real Madrid’s management: “If I have committed a crime, let them report me, but they have no right to take away my right to express my opinion… constitutional rights and freedoms cannot be restricted from the stadium’s VIP boxes.”