Anas Laghrari did not see out Real Madrid’s win from where he had sat down. One of Florentino Perez’s closest associates was forced to leave the southern stand under pressure from fans who had turned on him in the middle of a coordinated protest aimed at Spanish football’s top table.

The stage for that protest was a large banner, draped in Barcelona blue and red, hoisted in the Grada Fans section behind the southern goal before kick-off. It branded LaLiga president Javier Tebas the “heir of Negreira”, tying him to the long-running refereeing-payments case that still shadows FC Barcelona. The club allowed the banner to stay up far longer than any protest aimed at Perez himself has been tolerated in recent seasons.

Chants, banners and a cleared seat

The south stand kept adding to it. The chorus moved from calls for Tebas to resign to accusations of federation corruption and chants invoking Negreira. The banner was still visible when stewards began nudging Laghrari, a Moroccan businessman long tied to Perez’s European Super League project, out of a section that no longer wanted him in it.

Perez did not intervene publicly on Sunday. His last loud brush with his own supporters came in May, when he was filmed in a heated exchange near the presidential box as security pulled down anti-Perez banners during a trophyless season. Five months on, the banners are different and so is the target, but the arena is the same.

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Mbappe booed, even after scoring

The strangest subplot sat lower down the stand. Kylian Mbappe, the French forward Real Madrid signed in 2024, was jeered by a group of his own supporters during warm-up when he went to collect a ball from the crowd.

According to Goal, the reaction only grew.

“When Kylian Mbappe came out to warm up and tried to get the ball back from the stands, a group of fans booed him. They did it again after an exchange of the ball, and louder still even after his superb second goal.”

That second goal came from the penalty spot in the 63rd minute. Mbappe had already opened the scoring with a strike seven minutes before half-time to double a lead given by Arda Guler’s 30th-minute opener, and Yan Diomande added a fourth in the 82nd. Manu Bueno pulled one back for Sevilla, but Jose Mourinho’s side were never troubled on the scoreboard. Vinicius Junior watched from the stands, serving a suspension.

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The ‘encrypted images’ problem

Then there was the Guler incident. In the first half, the Turkish midfielder caught Sevilla’s Gerard Fernandez, known as Peque, with an elbow. The replays, according to Goal, “clearly showed the intent”.

The Bernabeu is one of the most heavily camera-rigged stadiums in Europe. On Sunday that infrastructure produced nothing a referee could act on.

“The most modern of stadiums, equipped with hundreds of cameras, somehow could not find a clear image of Arda Guler’s elbow on Sevilla player Peque … where nothing but encrypted images were shown,” Goal wrote.

No red card followed. Asked about the incident, Mourinho said he had not seen the pictures, according to AFP. Sevilla head coach Luis Garcia Plaza, speaking to reporters after the match, said his side had been denied the chance to play out a different fixture altogether, suggesting 11-on-10 would have been another contest.

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Real Madrid left the Bernabeu with three points and Mbappe with two more goals. The next test on the same pitch is RB Leipzig in the Champions League league phase on Wednesday, kick-off 9pm local time.

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