Real Madrid fans are planning a white-handkerchief protest during Wednesday’s Spanish Super Cup second leg at home against Barcelona.
The protest is against the five-match ban handed to star man Cristiano Ronaldo in the first leg played on Saturday.
The group plans to display a banner at the Bernabeu to highlight the feeling that Madrid have been harmed by “scandalous” officiating, with the protest timed for when Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez, 33, enters the pitch ahead of what will be the Murcian referee’s first Clasico.
The group’s president, Nabil Alturek, told radio show “El Larguero” that he had not spoken about the protest with club officials but other fan groups had said they would join in.
“We will see what happens, but it has a big media impact already. We have made a banner to show when the referees come out onto the pitch, and not just that but also packets of Kleenex, which we will be handing out,”Alturek said.
Ronaldo was shown a second yellow card late on in Madrid’s 3-1 win at the Camp Nou after referee Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea ruled he had dived to try to win a penalty.
The Portugal captain reacted by pushing the Basque official, earning an extra four-game suspension on top of the mandatory one-match ban for the sending off in a ruling from the Spanish federation’s presiding judge on Monday.
