The decision of Vinicius Júnior, Kylian Mbappé and Ibrahima Konaté not to wear the support shirt for Ceuta before the match against Elche continues to generate controversy at the social and political level in Spain. The three footballers refused to display the tribute slogan: “We are all caballas. Ceuta and the Knights of the Sea“. A garment prepared by the Valencia Business Association (AVE), headed by former Madrid president Vicente Boluda, for the home matches of the four clubs in the Valencian Community: Levante, Villarreal, Elche and Valencia. But why this rejection from the players when Real Madrid, their club, had accepted the proposal? Well, we need to rewind 24 hours.
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Vinicius, Mbappé and Konaté avoid wearing the support message for Ceuta before Elche – Real Madrid
- Editorial: ABRAHAM P. ROMERO
During the minutes before the match between Villarreal and Betis, the Andalusian team joined, as Madrid would do in Elche a day later, Villarreal’s proposal to enter the field wearing shirts supporting the population of Ceuta. They were the same shirts prepared by AVE that Elche and Madrid would later wear at the Martínez Valero. Both starting teams of Villarreal and Betis wore them and the image caused a negative reaction in Morocco against Ez Abde, star of the verdiblanco team and member of the African national team.
The forward of Betis had to delete most of his social media posts and received thousands of insults from Moroccan citizens, who accused him of going against his own country by wearing the support shirt for Ceuta. But far from regretting it, Abde defended his position arguing that it was “of a social nature in support of a population and its inhabitants”. “At no time has the shirt referring to the people of Ceuta been used with a political objective or to show contempt towards my people, the Moroccan people,” he added in a statement on his social networks, insisting that “this is not an apology to anyone”. “Anyone who wants to use this to doubt my love for my country is free to do so, I will continue to live every day with my head held high and will continue to proudly and sacrificially represent my roots,” he concluded.
The Madrid locker room
That post by Abde and all the controversy generated by the shirt reached the Madrid locker room. Brahim Díaz is Abde’s teammate in the Morocco national team and Achraf Hakimi, captain of the Maghreb team, is one of Mbappé’s best friends. And all of them, like any young person today, are aware of what happens on social networks and especially everything related to football. They were aware of the reactions generated in Morocco by the image of Abde.
That is why when after the warm-up at Martínez Valero Elche informed Madrid of the initiative, Madrid accepted and the white team’s staff handed the shirts to the players, several had doubts about what to do. And three of them, Mbappé, Vinicius and Konaté, decided to fold the shirts at the message height so it would not be seen, thus avoiding criticism from Morocco. Only “we are all” could be read, without the reference to “caballas”, the nickname by which the inhabitants of Ceuta are known.
According to what this newspaper has learned, the players considered that the shirt had a political charge and refused to take a position on the situation. Morocco is a usual vacation destination for Mbappé, while Konaté spent a few days there on vacation this summer and Vinicius visited the country as a UNESCO ambassador in 2024. None wanted greater controversies with the Maghreb country and, according to this newspaper, with any other either. They prefer to stay out of situations related to possible political problems, although Mbappé himself raised his voice in the last French elections, held during Euro 2024, to show his rejection of the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.
Once the controversy was generated after the image of the players, Madrid hinted that inside the locker room there are different “beliefs, sensitivities, opinions and views of reality”, respecting the decision of their footballers not to join the tribute. The club did not want to impose its view on the matter, and internally recalled that in last weekend’s Levante-Barcelona match, the Barça squad did not join the action of the granota team, which entered the Ciutat de Valencia with shirts supporting Ceuta.
In the case of Madrid, this is the second official act of support for Ceuta after the mosaic of flags shown by much of the Santiago Bernabéu during the Champions match against Inter Milan. An initiative concentrated in the Fans Stand and which ended with almost the entire stadium chanting “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta is defended”.
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