{"id":1305,"date":"2025-12-03T15:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:25:15","slug":"real-madrid-spains-most-favoured-team-by-referees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/03\/real-madrid-spains-most-favoured-team-by-referees\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid: Spain&#8217;s most favoured team by referees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"581\" src=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1306\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5.png 1000w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-300x174.png 300w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-5-768x446.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A Betfair study, &#8216;Love and Hate in Spain: Football as Religion&#8217;, conducted with over 1,000 respondents, indicates Real Madrid has the largest fanbase but is also widely seen as benefiting most from refereeing decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spanish football fandom is primarily split between Real Madrid and Barcelona. While regional variations exist across Spain&#8217;s autonomous communities, these two clubs remain the most supported nationwide. Betfair&#8217;s study, titled &#8216;Love and Hate in Spain: Football as Religion: This is How Spaniards Are as a Footballing Tribe&#8217;, based on over 1,000 interviews with men and women, revealed several key conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Real Madrid: Spain&#8217;s most popular club<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The survey identified Real Madrid as the most supported club, favoured by 35% of respondents, compared to Barcelona&#8217;s 27%. Atletico Madrid ranked a distant third with 7%. Real Madrid holds the top spot in 10 autonomous communities, whereas Barcelona leads only in Catalonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regionally, Real Betis is the most popular choice among Andalusians (25%), though Real Madrid claims higher overall support in Andalusia (29%). In a notable outcome for the Valencian Community, both Valencia (33%) and Real Madrid (32%) recorded very similar levels of support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Real Betis: The most liked club<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Real Betis is considered the most sympathetic club by fans nationwide. When asked &#8216;if your team disappeared, which one would you switch to?&#8217;, 18% of respondents chose the Green and Whites. Furthermore, their fanbase is rated as the most well-liked, at 28%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conversely, Real Madrid and Barcelona are jointly ranked highest, significantly ahead of other clubs, with 34% of respondents identifying them as the teams they would most prefer to see &#8216;erased from the map&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Real Madrid perceived as the most favoured by referees<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A significant finding indicates that Spaniards widely perceive Real Madrid (51%) and Barcelona (44%) as the teams most favoured by referees. Atletico Madrid ranked a distant third, with only 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among specific fanbases, perceptions vary. A significant majority of Real Madrid fans (89%), along with supporters of Real Sociedad (67%), Elche (86%), and Mallorca (67%), consider Barcelona to be the most favoured. Conversely, fans of Atletico Madrid, the country&#8217;s third-largest fanbase, largely consider Real Madrid as the most favoured (71%), followed by Barcelona (26%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, only 4% of both Real Madrid and Barcelona fans believe their own teams benefit most from refereeing decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Betfair study, &#8216;Love and Hate in Spain: Football as Religion&#8217;, conducted with over 1,000 respondents, indicates Real<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1307,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions\/1307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}