The German defender made headlines after losing his cool when his Real Madrid team lost the Spanish Cup final in 2025. The defender, who had already been replaced, reacted angrily to a referee decision against his teammate Kylian Mbappe. Gestures and verbal clashes are common in football, but R\u00fcdiger went too far. He was wild-eyed when he was originally held back by teammates and coaching staff before hurling an object, accepted as an ice cube, at referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea. The Spanish official confirmed that the object had missed him, and R\u00fcdiger was sent off and later banned for six league games.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid had canceled their media obligations and an open training session before the game after de Burgos spoke in a television interview about the effects on him and his family of the continuing verbal criticism against referees on Real Madrid TV. "When a child goes to school and people tell him that his father is a thief, it is confusing," he said. Real Madrid struck back, stating that these comments made intentionally 24 hours before kickoff were "a clear and obvious hostility and animosity towards Real Madrid." The bad blood boiled over in the final, with Jude Bellingham and Lucas Vazquez being sent off for their reactions.<\/p>\n
R\u00fcdiger will miss the rest of Real Madrid’s domestic season while trying to overhaul Barcelona’s lead in La Liga. The Spanish Football Association stated that the ban was "due to minor violence against the referees," which means R\u00fcdiger avoided the longer suspension many expected. He is not available for Champions League games, but will play in the revised World Championship in the USA in June and July, and has international games with Germany in the Nations League in early June. However, R\u00fcdiger revealed that he had undergone knee surgery, which could affect his participation regardless of the ban.<\/p>\n
R\u00fcdiger apologized for his actions on social media, stating, "There is definitely no excuse for my behavior. I’m very sorry. Sorry to the referee again and everyone I disappointed." The condemnation for R\u00fcdiger’s behavior was almost universal. Several other Real Madrid players reacted angrily, but the defender is widely considered to have crossed a line. Former German national Dietmar Hamann wants the Germany FA (DFB) to take action, suggesting that R\u00fcdiger should be suspended. However, the German national team manager Rudi V\u00f6ller suggested that the DFB would probably not ban the player, despite condemning his actions.<\/p>\n
It is not the first time R\u00fcdiger has been in trouble. UEFA opened a case against him and teammates Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius JR, and Dani Ceballos after a victory against Atletico in March. R\u00fcdiger seemed to make a gesture of the neck in punishment, and he and Mbappe received one-match bans. He was also criticized for shouting "Viva Athletic de Bilbao!" in the Real Madrid dressing room after a cup victory against Bilbao’s violent rival, Real Sociedad. Before these incidents, R\u00fcdiger’s career was largely controversy-free, although he was targeted by the far-right during Germany’s Euro 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Incident The German defender made headlines after losing his cool when his Real Madrid team lost the Spanish Cup final in 2025. The defender, who had already been replaced, reacted angrily to a referee decision against his teammate Kylian Mbappe. Gestures and verbal clashes are common in football, but R\u00fcdiger went too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9521,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions\/9521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}