Real Madrid’s Derby Rage: Referee Controversy After Atletico Defeat
The final whistle at the derby did not calm anything. It simply moved the storm indoors.
Real Madrid’s 2-1 defeat to Atletico was combustible enough on the pitch, decided by a late penalty and a red card for Dean Huijsen after his foul on Giuliano Simeone. The real explosion came later, though, on Real Madrid TV, where the club’s official channel unleashed one of its fiercest tirades yet against Spanish refereeing.
A Derby Lost – And A Flashpoint
The match itself turned on Huijsen’s dismissal. With the game in the balance, the defender’s challenge on Simeone was punished with a spot-kick and a red card, tilting the derby decisively in Atletico’s favour.
For Real Madrid’s in-house broadcasters, that was only the final act of a much larger grievance.
Their fury centred on the first half. On two challenges in particular. The channel argued that Atletico should have been reduced to nine men, insisting Cristian Romero and Lee Kang-in both merited red cards long before Huijsen ever stepped into the spotlight.
From there, the narrative hardened: this was not just a bad night for one referee, but part of a pattern.
“It Makes You Want to Walk Away”
Real Madrid TV dedicated its post-match coverage almost entirely to the officiating, barely disguising its belief that the outcome had been “heavily manipulated” by decisions that went against the team.
“We don’t know what would have happened if Atletico had been reduced to nine players. I’m sure many Madrid fans are eager to get up and walk away from this competition,” the channel stated, as quoted by Mundo Deportivo. “It makes you want to get up and walk away. Now they’ve tightened the screws a little more. Before, they tried to cover it up; now they don’t.”
This was not the language of mild irritation. It was the language of open confrontation.
Personal Shots at the Referee
The criticism quickly turned personal. The channel targeted match official Miguel Angel Ortiz Arias, even dragging in his recent off-field associations.
“[Miguel Angel] Ortiz Arias was hanging out with Barcelona players a few weeks ago, and now this,” they added. “It’s all sickening. They don’t care if the sh*t spills over into [Javier] Tebas’s La Liga. What’s happened this season has already pushed everyone over the edge.”
The implication was clear: this was not incompetence in their eyes, but bias.
The broadcast then escalated again, using violent imagery to describe what they see as the current climate around Real Madrid in domestic competition.
“All that’s missing is a directive allowing Madrid’s rivals to take the field armed with revolvers. When Lee Kang-in tackled Fede, and he stood up to protest, the referee addressed Valverde with a cocky, thuggish attitude.”
The mention of Fede Valverde’s exchange with the referee was used as another example of what the channel portrayed as a lack of respect towards Real Madrid players.
“They Don’t Let Them Compete”
Across the programme, one theme was hammered home: Real Madrid are being treated differently.
“There’s a different standard when it comes to Madrid. They don’t let them compete. But these are the plans of La Liga and the RFEF,” the broadcaster claimed, directly accusing both the league and the federation of shaping an environment in which the club cannot fight on equal terms.
The Huijsen penalty only deepened that sense of persecution. The channel openly questioned whether Atletico would ever have been punished in the same way at the other end.
“Given how the refereeing has gone, I doubt they would have sent off an Atletico player in the other penalty area, the way they did with Huijsen. The football debate doesn’t make sense.”
In that single line, they dismissed the tactical and technical analysis of the derby as pointless, framing everything through the prism of officiating.
A Debate That Will Not Cool
The fallout from this broadcast will not stay confined to Real Madrid’s media ecosystem. In Spain’s already overheated refereeing climate, such a direct, televised assault from a club’s official channel only intensifies the pressure on officials and on the institutions that appoint them.
The derby result will fade from the scoreboard in a few weeks. The words from Real Madrid TV will linger far longer, replayed, dissected, and used as ammunition in a season where every whistle is now under suspicion.
On the pitch, though, there is no time for grievance therapy. Real Madrid must patch up a defence now missing the suspended Huijsen and try to reset after a defeat that cut deep.
The question is whether they can truly move on while their own television channel insists the contest itself is rigged.
