Vinicius and Mbappe Hid the Ceuta Shirt Madrid Posted

Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr. and Ibrahima Konate rolled their pre-match shirts to the chest before Real Madrid’s 3-2 win at Elche, cutting off a slogan of support for Ceuta. Television pictures from the Martínez Valero on Tuesday, September 15, showed the two forwards hitching the white tees so “Todos somos caballas” could not be read, then peeling them off before the handshake, while Konate carried his in his hands.

The club had already told the public that the squad displayed the message. The people named on the cotton, a Moroccan winger who did wear it, and the Valencia business group that wrote the slogan are the ones left holding the row.

Three Madrid Stars Hid a Slogan Their Club Had Already Posted

Elche and Real Madrid walked out in matching white campaign shirts. Most of both squads kept them on through the greeting. Vinicius and Mbappe did not. They pulled the fabric only as far as the chest, and cameras caught Mbappe glancing across before folding his own shirt to the same height.

Konate never put his on. He collected it from the kit man in the tunnel and held it. By the time the line formed for the handshake, the three were already in match kit, and the rest of the Madrid party still had the slogan across their chests.

Hours around kickoff, Real Madrid published a note that both teams had taken to the pitch wearing shirts that read Todos somos caballas as a show of solidarity with Ceuta. The pictures from the same night show three of its players making sure that line could not be filmed on them. None of the three has given a public reason. Their representatives have been asked.

A Valencia Business Lobby Put Ceuta on a Football Shirt

The slogan did not start in a dressing room. The Asociación Valenciana de Empresarios, AVE, launched “Todos somos caballas” on September 11 as a civic campaign after the July rush into Ceuta, and asked companies and clubs to spread it. LaLiga then allowed the shirts only for matchdays five and six in the Valencia region, not across the whole first division.

AVE is chaired by Vicente Boluda Fos, who has run the group since 2011 and runs Boluda Corporación Marítima. He was also Real Madrid’s interim president from January to May 2009, after Ramón Calderón resigned, and later weighed a run against Florentino Pérez. The cotton on Madrid chests on Tuesday night came from a lobby whose president once sat in the same boardroom.

An initiative of support for the citizens focused on conveying a message of solidarity, closeness and territorial cohesion in Spain. As business owners and as Spanish citizens, we do not want to remain on the sidelines, especially considering the impact the situation is having on the economy, employment in the region and society as a whole.

Asociación Valenciana de Empresarios, campaign statement, September 11, 2026

AVE’s own page frames the same pitch as solidarity, closeness and territorial cohesion, and tells members to download the artwork. That territorial line is what turned a local nickname into a football argument. Caballas is the popular name for people from Ceuta, tied to mackerel fishing in the Strait. The promoters also used “Ceuta no está sola,” Ceuta is not alone.

Why Ceuta Ended Up on a La Liga Shirt

Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast, on the Moroccan border and separated from mainland Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar. The shirts followed a crossing that began on July 30 at the Tarajal fence, when tens of thousands of people came over from Morocco in two days.

Ceuta’s mayor put the two-day count at at least 72,000 irregular crossings, most of them by swimming around the fence, and said at least 100 people died on the way. Most of those who arrived were later returned. As many as 5,000 remain in camps or sleep on streets and beaches. Residents have wrecked some shelters and blocked aid, citing safety.

FROM TARAJAL TO THE TUNNEL

1. July 30-31, 2026: The crossing at Tarajal overwhelms Ceuta’s border and services.
2. September 8, 2026: The Bernabéu south stand stages a Ceuta-flag tifo before Real Madrid against Inter Milan, and the rest of the ground applauds.
3. September 11, 2026: AVE launches the caballas campaign and asks Spanish business and sport to carry it.
4. September 13-15, 2026: LaLiga shirts appear only in three Valencia-region games, and the row moves from Abde’s inbox to the Elche tunnel.

A week before Elche, Madrid’s singing section had already made the city’s coat of arms visible in the Champions League. The club had also denied talk of a ban on Ceuta or Spanish flags at the Bernabéu. The pre-match tee at Elche was a second, more personal ask: wear the words on your body, under broadcast lights, with Elche’s squad doing the same.

Barcelona Sat It Out, and a Moroccan Winger Did Not

Six first-division squads were in the three Valencia fixtures. Only Barcelona, as a club, walked out in match kit and left the campaign shirt in the dressing room at the Ciutat de València. Real Betis and Villarreal both wore it the next night at La Cerámica. So did Elche. So did most of Madrid.

THE THREE VALENCIA FIXTURES

Abdessamad Ezzalzouli, the Betis winger known as Ez Abde, is 24, was born in Beni Mellal, moved to Spain at seven, and chose Morocco, with a senior debut in September 2022. He wore the same slogan on Monday, September 14. Moroccan users called it betrayal, asked for him to be dropped from the national team, and sent threats. He deleted his Instagram account, then put out a statement.

At no point was the shirt about the people of Ceuta used with a political aim or as contempt toward my people, the Moroccan people. This was a social shirt in support of a population and its residents, whatever their nationality, who were living through a hard situation. That said, this is not an apology to anyone, and anyone who wants to use it to doubt my love for my country is free to do so. I will keep living every day with my head high and I will keep representing my roots with pride and sacrifice.

Ez Abde, written statement, September 15, 2026

LaLiga and Betis backed him after the post. Betis had already announced a charity game against AD Ceuta FC, with the take going to Cáritas Ceuta. Abde’s night is the clean counter-image to the Elche tunnel: a Moroccan international wore the cotton, took the abuse from his own country, and still refused to call it politics. Vinicius, Mbappe and Konate, all of them public voices against racism in other settings, treated the same cotton as something they would not display.

The heat in Spanish feeds attached itself to the rolled hem. A full-team skip, the way Barcelona did, reads as a club decision. Pulling a shirt on and then hiding the words reads as contempt in a way a leftover tee in the tunnel does not. That is why Tuesday’s pictures travelled further than Sunday’s.

A 120-Member Peña and a Letter to the Club

The loudest English-language argument has been about three millionaires. In Ceuta, the argument is about a supporters’ club that has been in the city since 1987. Peña Madridista de Ceuta has 120 members. Its president, Miguel Ángel Montano, said the group will send a written complaint to Real Madrid’s peñas office.

About 20 members watched the Elche match at the peña, down from the 30 to 35 who used to gather. Jose Mari Gómez, another member, called the rolled shirts “lamentable” because the display had been agreed between Elche and Madrid. Montano’s quarrel is the method, not only the refusal.

WHAT THE PEÑA IS TAKING TO THE CLUB

• The method: Putting the shirt on and hiding the slogan, in Montano’s view, was worse than leaving it in the tunnel.
• The deal: Members treat the display as a club-to-club agreement, not a private fashion choice in the tunnel.
• The letter: A joint written complaint is being prepared for Real Madrid’s supporters-club department.
• The city: Montano ties the anger to nights when, he says, the streets around the peña belong to the people still sleeping rough after July.

He also said the row may have done Ceuta a backhanded favour by keeping the city on television longer than a quiet, fully worn shirt would have. That is a cold consolation from a room that spent the match shouting at the screen.

It was not in anyone’s defence, it was in support. There is no racism, there is no politics, there is only support for Ceuta and for the caballas. If they put the shirt on and hide the slogan, I do not know what can be going through their heads. They are fakes.

Miguel Ángel Montano, president, Peña Madridista de Ceuta

AD Ceuta FC, the city’s club, would not join that scolding. Press officer Teresa López called the campaign social, not political, and said each person is free to share it or not. “Politics is for the politicians,” she said. She thanked the clubs and players who did show the slogan, and pointed to football’s power to put a city on a broadcast that would otherwise stay on a border bulletin.

Locals answering a widely shared post that called the slogan a right-wing smear against migrants said the city has spent more than 40 days waiting for help, and bristled at being labelled racist from the peninsula. The same feed filled with the opposite charge, that three foreign stars had sided with the people who crossed in July. The cotton cannot carry both readings at once, which is why a peña in Ceuta and a winger from Beni Mellal ended up in the same week with opposite bruises.

The Club Posted One Message and Defended Another

A Real Madrid official said the club accepted Elche’s request to wear the shirts, and that the organisation respects different opinions and gave each player the freedom to choose. A club source described the three as socially and politically outspoken, and tied the refusal to personal sensitivities that do not match the club’s own yes. Alberto Ibáñez, the Compromís spokesman in Congress, said helping Ceuta should not become a slogan that divides on national identity or even stirs racism, and that reading is circulating as the likely motive. The players have not confirmed it.

Madrid’s public line is a split screen. The website said the players displayed the solidarity message. The unofficial briefing said a football club is a group of people, not a single opinion, and that Elche’s ask was accepted even though the dressing room holds more than one view of the world. In practical terms the club chose the players over the slogan it had just posted.

That choice will follow the squad to the derby against Atletico Madrid on Sunday, September 20. Florentino Pérez’s office has not announced a fine, and the club’s early signals point the other way. The peña letter, if it arrives, will land on a desk that has already decided the tunnel was not a disciplinary matter.

Espí’s Late Winner Leaves the Shirt Fight Open

On the pitch, Jose Mourinho’s side almost threw the night away. Arda Guler’s free kick in the 25th minute came back off the woodwork and in off Elche goalkeeper Matias Dituro. Mbappe made it 2-0 in the 33rd minute from Yan Diomande’s first Madrid assist, his seventh league goal in six games. Abiel Osorio headed one back in the 71st. Fer Nino equalised in the 83rd after Marc Cucurella gave the ball away.

Carlos Espí, 21, a summer signing from Levante, had already scored a last-minute winner on debut at Espanyol. Mourinho sent him on with Endrick in the 87th minute. In the first minute of added time Mbappe broke down the left and squared, and Espí tapped into an empty net. The club match report calls it Espí’s stoppage-time winner in Elche, the fifth LaLiga win of the season.

Real Madrid sit on 15 points from six league matches, five wins and one defeat, at Betis, and are level with Barcelona, who have a game in hand. Across all competitions they have won six of seven. Elche are winless, bottom, on two points from a 0-2-4 start. Vinicius started and came off in the 67th minute for Brahim Diaz, still looking for his first league goal of the season, with Mourinho saying the goals will come.

The result does not rewrite the tunnel. The three players still have not said why they hid a line their teammates wore, and the peña in Ceuta is still drafting its letter. A slogan that was meant to tell a small Spanish city it was not alone has left that city’s madridistas writing to their own club, and a Moroccan winger deleting his Instagram for wearing the same words in full.