Real Madrid Loses CAS Appeal Over Uefa Fine for Homophobic Chants

The most decorated club in European football has lost a battle it badly wanted to win – and not on the pitch.

Real Madrid’s appeal against a Uefa sanction for homophobic chants aimed at Pep Guardiola has been dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which upheld both the fine and the disciplinary measures imposed after last season’s Champions League tie against Manchester City.

CAS backs Uefa – and calls out “severe” abuse

In a detailed written verdict explaining the 14 April decision, CAS judges backed Uefa’s original ruling that the chants heard at the Bernabéu were “of a severe discriminatory nature … to be considered as far more serious and damaging than acceptable satire and banter.”

Madrid must now pay a €30,000 (£25,000) fine and remain under a two-year probation order that includes the partial closure of a small section of their stadium for one Champions League match if there is a repeat offence.

The case stems from the knockout play-off second leg in February last year, when Madrid beat City 3-1. During the second half, a section of home supporters chanted about Guardiola being thin, taking drugs, and being seen in one of Madrid’s most gay-friendly neighbourhoods.

An expert witness told the court that, in context, the chant amounted to suggesting the former Barcelona coach was “infected with HIV/AIDS,” a link CAS treated as central to the discriminatory nature of the abuse.

Madrid’s defence falls flat

Madrid’s legal team tried to frame the incident as something else entirely. They argued that “expressions that are humorous, exaggerated or aimed at powerful institutions or public figures” needed to be judged within their specific cultural and sporting context.

They also floated an alternative theory: that the chant might have come from Manchester City supporters, not Madrid’s own fans, when Uefa first assessed the case in February 2025. On top of that, they attacked the Fare Network’s reporting, calling it riddled with “very serious formal and substantive defects.”

CAS was not persuaded.

Video of the chant, filmed in the stands and later posted on social media, had been submitted to Uefa by Fare, which works with Fifa to monitor discrimination at international competitions. That footage formed part of the evidence package that underpinned Uefa’s original decision and, ultimately, CAS’s endorsement of it.

Uefa pushes back against a “long shadow”

Uefa’s lawyers arrived in Lausanne with a broader argument. They placed the Bernabéu incident within football’s long and troubled relationship with homophobia, describing how it has “cast a long and deeply troubling shadow” over the game.

“For decades,” they told CAS, “the sport has been marred by a culture of machismo, exclusion, prejudice, and hostility towards individuals based on their sexual orientation.”

They went further, stressing that this “persistent intolerance has impacted the personal and professional lives of countless players, coaches and fans and also led to tragic outcomes in the past.”

In that light, Uefa insisted, Madrid should not be fighting the punishment but leading the resistance to such behaviour. As one line of argument put it, the club “should be the first fighting against those chants, instead of hiring high profile lawyers to file an appeal with the CAS.”

The financial context underlined the point. The €30,000 fine represents just 0.03% of the more than €100 million (£85m) Madrid earned in Champions League prize money that season.

Legal battles on two fronts

The hearing took place in Lausanne last September, at a time when relations between Madrid and Uefa were already strained. The club had been locked in a separate, long-running legal fight with European football’s governing body over the failed Super League project.

That dispute was finally settled three months ago, just as CAS judges were putting the finishing touches to their verdict on the homophobic abuse case. Two battles, two very different arenas, one club at the centre of both.

Here, Madrid lost outright. The CAS panel sided with Uefa on the core issues: the nature of the chant, the reliability of the evidence, and the responsibility of a club of Madrid’s stature to police its own stands.

A warning before the next meeting with City

The timing of the decision also casts a shadow over a familiar fixture. Before Madrid hosted Manchester City again in the Champions League in March, club officials reportedly met with fan groups, urging them not to target Guardiola with abuse.

The message was clear: the line had been crossed once. CAS has now underlined exactly where that line is – and how costly it could be, reputationally as much as financially, if it is crossed again.