First came the missing banners. Then came the Moroccan conspiracy.
Real Madrid found itself having to deny claims that Spanish flags and banners supporting Ceuta had been barred from the Santiago Bernabéu for its Champions League match against Inter Milan.
The club called the claim “categorically false."
Spanish flags, as well as those of Spain’s autonomous communities and cities, have always been allowed at the Bernabéu “without any restriction," it said.
That should have settled the flag question.
It didn’t.
Attention instead turned to Anas Laghrari, the Franco-Moroccan financier and long-time adviser to Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez.
For some on the Spanish far right, Laghrari has become the answer to quite a few questions lately.
Why were there no pro-Ceuta banners at the Bernabéu? Laghrari.
Who is supposedly pulling the strings behind Pérez? Laghrari.
And who, according to the more ambitious version of the story, wants to “sabotage” the Bernabéu so that Casablanca’s Grand Stade Hassan II can host the 2030 World Cup final?
Laghrari again.
His Moroccan origins are rarely left out.
There is no dispute that Laghrari is close to Pérez. The Real Madrid president says so himself.
“I saw Anas being born. He is like a son to me and his father was like a brother,” Pérez told El País in May.
He called Laghrari a man of “exceptional intelligence."
Nor is Laghrari simply a family friend who happens to spend time around the club.
He has been involved in major financial matters at Real Madrid, including the financing of the Bernabéu renovation and work on the club’s future economic model.
El Confidencial has described him as one of Pérez’s trusted men and reported that he carries considerable weight in some of the club’s financial operations.
So Laghrari has influence.
The rest requires a considerably bigger leap.
Pérez has already been asked about suggestions that his adviser exercises some mysterious control over him.
“He simply helps us,” was his answer.
He said Laghrari advises the club on matters including technology and does not run its sporting policy.
Then there is the alleged plot against the Bernabéu.
The theory has Laghrari working from inside Real Madrid to hurt the stadium’s chances of staging the 2030 World Cup final and favor Casablanca instead.
Yet AS reported in July that Real Madrid, with Pérez “at its head”, had moved early to secure the final for the Bernabéu.
There is another problem.
ACS, the company chaired by Pérez, was not bidding to build the Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, AS reported in May 2025.
That is the same Casablanca stadium Laghrari is now accused of secretly promoting at the expense of Real Madrid’s own ground.
None of this makes Laghrari a minor figure at Real Madrid.
His ties to Pérez go back years. His father, an engineer, was a close friend of Pérez and worked with him in Morocco. Pérez has spoken openly about the relationship between the two families.
But being close to Pérez is not the same as controlling him.
And advising Real Madrid is still some distance from secretly sabotaging the Bernabéu.
The distance appears to have been covered rather quickly on social media.
What began with claims about Spanish and pro-Ceuta symbols at a football match now has a Moroccan-born financier suppressing banners, manipulating one of the most powerful men in Spanish football and plotting to send the World Cup final across the Strait.
Real Madrid has denied the only part of this story on which it has issued an official response: there was no ban on Spanish flags.
As for the rest, the Moroccan plot keeps getting bigger. The evidence hasn’t.
