Watch: Real Madrid Fans Show Support for Ceuta During Champions League Game

Thousands of fans of Spain’s Real Madrid soccer team used a UEFA Champions League match Tuesday to express support for Ceuta amid the ongoing illegal migrant invasion of the embattled Spanish enclave.

Real Madrid faced off against Italy’s Inter Milan on Tuesday night at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, ending in a 2-1 victory for the Spanish team.

The Bernabéu was also the stage for a new massive and peaceful expression of support of Ceuta prior to the start of the match by hundreds of Madrid fans who paid homage to the exclave as it goes through a dramatic and far-from-resolved crisis after tens of thousands of migrants swarmed the city in late July — with thousands of migrants still inside its territory over a month later.

The Spanish soccer fans unfurled flags and signs bearing Ceuta’s coat of arms, exclaiming some of the chants and slogans that have become mainstay in pro-Ceuta protests such as “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta is defended.”

The Real Madrid soccer team acknowledged the events and detailed that the rest of the stadium joined the tribute to Ceuta with a standing ovation before the start of the soccer match against Inter Milan.

Footage published on social media by the Spanish sports outlet Marca showed a group of Spaniards outside the Santiago Bernabéu holding large banners that read “Long Live Ceuta, Long Live Spain,” and “The Santiago Bernabéu with Ceuta.”

Spanish outlets detailed that rumors and hearsay of a purported “prohibition” of Ceuta flags at the match began circulating on regular and social media in days prior. Real Madrid denied the reports as “categorically false” and clarified that the soccer club has not issued any instructions to ban Spanish national flags or flags of any Spanish autonomous community or city from being brought into the soccer stadium.

“The club’s regulations follow the guidelines set forth in current legislation and, of course, allow and have always allowed, all official flags of our country to be displayed in our stadium without any restrictions,” the soccer club said in a statement.

El Faro de Ceuta reports that Tuesday’s show of support by Real Madrid fans is the latest in a series of pro-Ceuta expressions involving mainland Spanish soccer teams, with fans of Atlético Madrid, Valencia, RCD Espanyol, and several others having showed their support to the Spanish exclave following the late July invasion.

Earlier this week, RCD Espanyol forward player Marcos Fernández showed a message written in his shirt that read, “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta is defended” after he scored a goal against Sevilla FC.

Fernández has reportedly played for Ceuta soccer teams in the past.