Javier Tebas, the president of the Spanish La Liga, has revealed how his passion for football and his support for Real Madrid began. The love started by chance in childhood and has never left him, even though his elder brother chose Barcelona.
Speaking in an interview highlighted by the Spanish newspaper "Marca", Tebas said: "At that time we split up, one of us for Barcelona and the other for Real Madrid, and that is where our passion for football and our interest in what was happening began. From then on, the love of football started."
An uncle later took him to watch a match, and that first pick of a club shaped his whole relationship with the game. "The choice of the two teams was random, and from that moment we showed an interest in that team," he said. "My elder brother is still a Barcelona supporter, and I am still a Real Madrid supporter."
Before he moved into working in football professionally, Tebas grew up in the city of Huesca, sharing his passion for Real Madrid with schoolfriends who counted Barcelona supporters among them.
That rivalry followed them off the pitch too. "There was never a night when we went out for drinks that did not end in a confrontation between Barcelona supporters and Real Madrid supporters," he said, recalling the usual debates and jokes between the two groups.
One moment still lingers in his memory. "When we used to say: we have won six European Cups, the Barcelona supporters would say: dinosaurs existed too! That phrase I will never forget."