Real Madrid issued a statement branding it "intolerable" that LaLiga president Javier Tebas continues to use his institutional position to attack the club, after Tebas criticised José Mourinho's post-derby comments calling referee Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias a "poor official" and VAR official Daniel Trujillo a man with a "rich history" against the club.
The Real Madrid statement read:
"Our club considers it intolerable that the president of LaLiga uses his institutional position to keep disqualifying and attacking Real Madrid in the way he does in each of his interventions.
"And it is very worrying that whoever has the responsibility of representing and protecting the interests of all LaLiga clubs continues to be repeatedly obsessed with Real Madrid, turning our club into a permanent target of his public attacks."
The club argued Tebas was damaging the league's own image, and called for his removal:
"It is entirely surprising that the president of LaLiga devotes his time and his personal channels to trying to publicly discredit Real Madrid, rather than contributing, from the responsibility of his position, to building confidence in the institutions that must guarantee the fairness of the competition.
"In doing so, he continues to damage the image of our competition and of Spanish football around the world. Given this inappropriate and sustained behaviour, we believe Spanish professional football urgently needs a leader capable of running it and developing its full potential with the basic duty of neutrality.
"It needs someone who understands the nature of the role, because the president of LaLiga is not the owner of the competition, but a manager at the service of the clubs that make it up and entrust him with its direction."
Tebas responded on social media, opening with a pointed agreement on one point before rejecting the rest of the club's argument.
He wrote: "I fully agree with one sentence: the president of LaLiga is not the owner of the competition. Neither is the president of Real Madrid. Representing all the clubs requires defending equality and fairness between them. Also when it is claimed that 'LaLiga is worth nothing' without Real Madrid, or that referees harm 'the business that feeds them'.
"Your statement does not say a word about those claims, which prompted my response."
Tebas also pushed back on the idea that criticising referees amounts to persecution, and set out his own definition of independence.
"Criticising a refereeing decision is legitimate. Turning every setback into proof of a persecution is something else. Does that build confidence or does it damage the image of Spanish football? Independence requires deciding with your own judgement, without pressure or subordination, applying the same rules to everyone and defending the common interest.
"That means making decisions and taking positions, even if Real Madrid doesn't like it. Defending a club's interests does not mean adopting its narrative. And representing everyone does not mean obeying the most powerful. I am neither the owner of LaLiga, nor will I run it as though it belonged to a single club."