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          Real Madrid president's negative coverage claims rejected by media

          • Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondentMar 13, 2015, 06:00 AM ET

          Real Madrid president Florentino Perez's attempt to blame "ill-intentioned" reporting by the local press for this team's current issues has been rejected by the editors of both Marca and AS, the two main sports dailies based in the Spanish capital.

          The Blancos chief called a snap press conference on Thursday where he repeatedly claimed that negative reporting by the local media was the biggest problem facing Carlo Ancelotti's side, and said his decision to speak had been particularly motivated by that morning's Marca cover, which had said: "Florentino will fire Ancelotti if there's a debacle at Camp Nou."

          The paper said that, with Madrid having taken just one point from the last two La Liga games, and having been embarrassed by both the recent 4-0 loss at neighbours Atletico Madrid and Tuesday's 4-3 defeat at home by Schalke in the Champions League, Ancelotti would be sent packing should his team lose heavily in March 22's Clasico away to new league leaders Barcelona.

          Perez denied that this was the case, saying Ancelotti's job was safe until the end of the season at least "no matter what happens," and also defending Blancos players Gareth Bale, Iker Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo from what was described as "out of order" media criticism.

          Marca editor Oscar Campillo responded with a video published on the paper's website, in which the veteran journalist defended his publication, saying they only published information which they were satisfied had been verified.

          "This is not Marca's war," Campillo said. "Marca just limits itself to telling the things that it knows. Its editors have always been distinguished by their rigour and prudence, for publishing information that has been sufficiently corroborated. This is Florentino's war, this is not the first time he has done this."

          Campillo went on to recall that in January 2013 a similar declaration surprise news conference was called after Marca had published a cover detailing an apparent ultimatum issued by Casillas and Sergio Ramos calling for the exit of Jose Mourinho.

          That story was also rubbished by Perez as "lies" deliberately published to "destabilise" the club. However at the end of that season Mourinho left the club, and Ramos and Casillas remain senior figures at the Bernabeu.

          On Thursday, Marca tweeted images of previous front pages showing stories of the ultimatum, defending their story, and then Mourinho leaving at end of the season.

          Marca's cover on Friday morning again featured Perez over a headline saying he had "Pledged his Word," in a Spanish phrase suggesting that the previous day's statements could be seen as a hostage to fortune, depending on how results go over the coming weeks.

          Thursday's press event had also featured a debate between Perez and a reporter from Marca's rival AS, a publication which the Blancos chief said "prints lies every day" as part of a personal campaign directed against him.

          Friday's AS front cover said "Florentino dresses up as Mourinho," and listed some phrases from the previous day's event which the generally Madrid-backing paper suggested sounded like the sort of things Mourinho would have said.

          Inside, AS editor Alfredo Relano wrote that the press conference had mostly been a diversionary tactic, to distract Madrid fans from their team's issues by looking for an "external enemy."

          "Florentino convened the press yesterday to attack the press," Relano's editorial read. "The immediate motive was the front page of Marca, which spoke of an ultimatum for Ancelotti. The motive which was not as immediate was the anger of the Bernabeu the other day, when the team brushed against the prospect of elimination. The Madrid fans are angry and they have already distributed the blame (as seen in yesterday's AS) among the squad (56 percent), Ancelotti (27 percent) and Florentino (17 percent).

          "Faced with this state of opinion, it's good to look for an external enemy, even though the press do not put together starting lineups or make signings with fees disproportionate to their usefulness. The press sees what happens and tells what is going on, each one according to their best of their knowledge."