Following the altercation between Federico Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni, Real Madrid’s management has shifted focus from punishing the players to identifying the individual responsible for leaking confidential information from the dressing room to the media. The club is deeply concerned about persistent internal leaks.
Dani Ceballos is under suspicion.
News of the fight reached the press within just 20 minutes. For Real Madrid, this was the final straw.
The clash between Valverde and Tchouameni marked the peak of tensions that had been building inside the club for months. The incident was immediately leaked to the media, including detailed accounts of the verbal exchange and what transpired in the locker room. According to Cadena SER, only 20 minutes passed between the fight and the first report on Marca.
Real Madrid is convinced that a long-standing source inside the team has been feeding journalists information about conflicts, conversations, and internal dynamics. The regularity and speed of these leaks make coincidence unlikely. The latest episode has solidified this belief among the squad and management.
Players are also certain there is a mole. Valverde himself acknowledged this in a public statement after the altercation: “Obviously, someone here is spreading rumors, and in a season without titles, where Real Madrid is constantly under scrutiny, everything gets out of control.”
Journalist Anton Meana reported that on the day of the fight, CEO Jose Angel Sanchez and chief scout Juni Calafat held a meeting and decided to launch an internal investigation to uncover the source of the leaks. As added that some players believe they know the culprit, but the management is not rushing to conclusions and is conducting necessary checks.
The Athletic notes that the constant leaks only intensify the tension, completely destroying normal relationships within the team. They prevent rational resolution of disagreements and undermine trust among players.
Alvaro Arbeloa commented on the situation: “Leaking information about what happens in the dressing room—I think that’s a betrayal of Real Madrid. Absolute disloyalty to this badge. And it makes me very sad. Have I found the mole? No, I don’t work for the CIA or any such organization. I don’t accuse my players or anyone else; I can’t do that. There are many people at Real Madrid, and I’m not going to point fingers. What happens with my players stays between them and me.”
One possible mole is Dani Ceballos, according to Estadio Deportivo. He allegedly provided detailed accounts of the Tchouameni-Valverde fight to people outside the club. Arbeloa reportedly suspects Ceballos of leaking dressing room information to the press, and their relationship has broken down. Ceballos learned that the coach criticized him during a conversation with a representative from a club interested in signing him this summer. Subsequently, Arbeloa left Ceballos out of the squad for the match against Betis (1-1).
Florentino Perez is displeased with the leaks: “We know who did it. It’s a person who already knows they will leave the team, so they took this step. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with him. I think it’s terrible, and even worse that it became public. I’ve been here for 26 years, and there hasn’t been a single year without two or four players fighting. But I think it’s terrible that this got out. They have quarrels every year while I’ve been here. Like with young people: you hit, get hit back, and then you’re friends again. For me, the leak is even worse because it implies there’s more behind it than just a fight. If it were just a fight, they’d be friends again the next day and have coffee together. I think this is the first time I’ve seen something like this in 26 years at the club, and it worries me.”
Mourinho Also Hunted for a Mole at Real Madrid, Suspecting Casillas
It is highly likely that Jose Mourinho will be the next coach of Real Madrid. The last time a mole hunt occurred in the Santiago Bernabeu dressing room was during his tenure.
In April 2011, Mourinho was furious when Spanish media learned of his plan to start Pepe as a defensive midfielder in El Clasico. Former Real Madrid goalkeeper Antonio Adan recalled that Mourinho stormed into the dressing room that day: “He kicked a bottle and looked very angry. He shouted at all of us and asked who the rat was.”
As reported that Mourinho’s main suspicions fell on captain Iker Casillas and midfielder Esteban Granero. That incident in April 2011 is believed to have eroded Mourinho’s trust in Casillas and laid the foundation for their future conflict.
In the book “The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho,” it was noted that the Portuguese coach ordered club staff to check hotel rooms for listening devices.
The issue of leaks from the Real Madrid dressing room resurfaced in the 2012/13 season, during Mourinho’s direct conflict with Casillas after the Portuguese coach benched the Spaniard. Casillas’ girlfriend, journalist Sara Carbonero, reported problems in the dressing room in January 2013: “I know many players are unhappy with Mourinho. There is a conflict inside.”
This strengthened suspicions that Casillas was the source of leaks to the press, especially after El Confidencial’s September 2012 report that Cristiano Ronaldo accused Carbonero of spying on Real Madrid players and told Iker that his girlfriend was the reason Spanish media knew about dressing room affairs.
Casillas did not comment publicly until October 2014: “The team was not performing well, and our relationship with Mourinho deteriorated. We had certain disagreements, but we never lost respect. Then Sara reported problems in the dressing room, and that was just a pretext for attacks against me. Mourinho never said anything to me about Sara’s comments, but the change in our relationship was easy to notice. Soon I got injured, and a few weeks later the attacks began. I was called a traitor and a mole; it was hard to hear. I think neither Mourinho nor Perez truly believed it. Perhaps I should have spoken to the press, but I preferred to remain silent. Many criticized me for that decision, but I think when you talk about such things publicly, you only become angrier.”
An interesting incident occurred in 2016: when Zinedine Zidane replaced Rafa Benitez as coach of Real Madrid, a French prankster called Casillas (then at Porto), pretending to be Zizou, and asked him to return to the club. Before the prank was published in France, a journalist on Cadena SER (with an “exclusive” tag) reported Zidane’s desire to bring Iker back to Real Madrid. Who told them?