Real Madrid pulls the wool over the eyes of its conspiracy-theorist fans: the story of a farce

Barcelona paid the vice president of referees for years, and that stinks. Correct. The case is being investigated by the courts and followed by every media outlet in the country. Also correct. When the conspiracy-minded fringe of Real Madrid fans justify their paranoia by saying they're the only ones who care about the Negreira case and continue to denounce it, they're lying. And that's fine. They have reason to be outraged, and fans can't be expected to be measured and level-headed. If football is wild and sentimental, as Javier Marías said, we have to accept that a Twitter user is irrational and bordering on madness in defense of his colors.

A club, a gigantic institution, is something else.

What happened around a fantastic Cup final was tragicomic. Tragic if you're one of those romantics who still believes this game can be saved, that the ball isn't stained, as Maradona famously declared, that its transformation into a three-ring circus is fixable. Comical if you enjoy the enemy making a fool of themselves for the entire world to see.

The day before, with Madrid acting like the bully who pretends to be offended when their victims speak out, it was a great day for the show. The end of the match, with a bunch of kids dressed in white raging against a referee who had favored them in his only controversial decisions (the penalty on Ferran and the possible red card for Lucas Vázquez ), was proof that overacting eventually affects the dressing room. Except for Rudiger , who was born that way.

The important thing is that Real Madrid is aware that it's all a sham. They do this as a strategy, to throw birdseed to their unruly flock, fill hours of talk shows, and pretend to support a popular outrage that they neither feel nor endorse with their business decisions. Florentino knows that Real Madrid is a huge multinational that can't waste time on human whims.

If the fans want fury, they make videos, order room service instead of going to the official dinner, and leak a threat that no one believes about not playing in the final. But when it comes down to it, they support the enemy, that same Laporta who paid Negreira to sign Dani Olmo (vital in this decisive stretch of La Liga in a graceful act of poetic injustice), or they open doors that will help them, lever by lever, climb out of the financial hole. Madrid's anger, as a club, over Negreira is cosmetic. They prefer a strong Barça to a jailed one.

The reality is that he's fooling his most radical fans, but there they are, shouting at the clouds.