Debate erupts over Netflix documentary on Vinicius

Real Madrid as the spearhead of the anti-racism narrative

Real Madrid has ceased to be just a football club and has become, according to an increasingly vocal strand of opinion, the spearhead of a narrative that puts Spain in the dock. The thesis running through the whole affair is simple: the club chaired by Florentino Pérez has allegedly accepted the role of a platform from which to project an image of the country as a racist hell, with Vinicius Jr. as its visible face and Netflix as the megaphone. The immediate trigger was the filming of a documentary at the Santiago Bernabéu, a shoot that, for many, turned a match into a TV set and the fans into extras in a pre-written script.

The debate is not new, but it has mutated. No one argues anymore about whether Vinicius receives abuse — a fact nobody denies — but about what is done about it and who capitalises on the narrative. Some claim the Brazilian has gone from victim to a necessary player in a media operation; on the other side stands the argument that no player should have to endure what he endures. Between these two extremes, Spanish football is witnessing a clash that goes far beyond the stands.

The Netflix documentary and the script theory

The production company's shoot at the Madrid stadium was interpreted by part of the public as a calculated provocation. The sequence, according to that account, was predictable: camera, incident, raised fist and front page. The suspicion is not trivial. Valencia closed Mestalla to the production company, refusing to film inside the stadium or give interviews — a gesture some read as institutional dignity and others as mere calculation. Real Madrid, by contrast, would have thrown its doors wide open.

The deeper accusation is more ambitious: that the white club has become the perfect vehicle for implanting in Europe the idea of an apartheid which, according to this version, never existed here with the intensity attributed to it. The choice of football would be no accident. It is the sport with the largest global audience, and Real Madrid is the club with the greatest international reach. The stage, therefore, is ideal for delivering a message that, according to critics, seeks to generate a sense of collective guilt.

Why Real Madrid and not another club?

Because it is the most global and the most exposed. The paradox pointed out by the most acid-tongued analysts is that the club that prides itself on its Spanishness — with the crest, the crown and the name — is also the one that has most blurred that identity in its squad. The comparison with the era of Hierro, Raúl, Casillas, Salgado or Guti is repeated like a lament: that Madrid won Champions Leagues with a Castilian accent; this one, they say, looks like the French national team. The signing of Mbappé and the interest in other international players feed that sense of rootlessness.

It is not a new argument. It was already circulating when the club signed players of African or Latin American origin, but it now blends with the Vinicius affair and takes on another dimension. The uncomfortable question hanging in the air is: can a club be the spearhead of the anti-racism narrative and, at the same time, the one most criticised by its own fans over the player who embodies it? The answer, according to critics, is yes, because both things serve the same purpose: keeping Real Madrid at the centre of the media board.

The football business and the hypocrisy of the fan

Beyond the specific case, the affair exposes a broader criticism: football as a mass business that has emptied the fan experience of meaning. The description offered by some regular stadium-goers is revealing. The crowd, they say, sits looking at their phones, trinc sports betting or any other screen. The ultras sections sing what they are paid to sing, whether the team wins or loses. The match, as a sporting event, has been reduced to a backdrop.

That disconnection partly explains why the racism narrative finds fertile ground. If the fan is no longer in the match, if what happens in the stands washes over them, the club can afford to become something else: a messaging platform, a shop window for causes, a political actor. The criticism is aimed not only at Real Madrid but at the entire ecosystem. Women's football, some point out, has been used with the same logic: as a bridgehead for a crusade that transcends sport.

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The point where the analysis always gets stuck is the same. No one disputes that Vinicius receives abuse. No one disputes that racism exists and is condemnable. What is disputed is what is done with that fact: whether it is fought or exploited. And there, positions become irreconcilable. Some see a brave victim; others, an obedient actor in a script that overwhelms him. Football, meanwhile, remains the stage where Spain looks at itself in the mirror and does not like what it sees.