Real Madrid’s toxic targeting of referees is a symbol of the Spanish grandees’ decline | Jonathan Wilson

Super League patron Florentino Pérez sets the tone with his destructive acts of pettiness, dragging down a once noble club

Referees have never been so disdained and despised as they are now. Those who do not think they are corrupt, think they are incompetent. Standards, apparently, have never been lower. Clubs and their fans rage about conspiracies. But even in the present context, the scenes at the end of last Saturday’s Copa del Rey final were unprecedented as Antonio Rüdiger threw an ice-pack at the referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.

And to think this is a club that used to pride itself on its sense of its señorio, its gentlemanliness, to the extent that in Steve McManaman’s day players were given a code of conduct; the familiar line used to be whingeing about referees was for the cry-babies of Barcelona.

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