Real Madrid President Backs Ceuta After Migration Crisis

Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez visited city hall in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Friday to express solidarity with local residents after more than 70,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta from Morocco in July.

Pérez was accompanied by the club's honorary president and Ceuta native José Martínez Pirri. The Real Madrid president emphasized that the visit had been planned for several weeks and was unrelated to recent events.

The trip followed controversy from Tuesday's match against Elche, when Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Ibrahima Konaté covered up the phrase "We are all mackerels" on their solidarity T-shirts. "Mackerels" is a nickname for the residents of Ceuta, and the T-shirts were meant to express support for them.

Mbappé explained his decision by saying he did not want to prioritize the suffering of one group over another. Real Madrid stated that it respects the players' freedom to make their own decisions, but noted that the club had already expressed support for Ceuta through a tifo display a week earlier during the Champions League match against Inter Milan.

(Reuters, max)