Members of the UN Security Council urged Israel to follow the ceasefire and bolster border crossings to lessen Gaza’s severe humanitarian crisis. Palestinians claim that their access to food, water, and shelter is still difficult because aid flows are still far below what is required.
Published On 25 Nov 2025
Madrid, Spain – Real Madrid fans divided over plans to allow private equity investors to purchase up to 10% of the club, according to club president Florentino Perez.
Los Merengues fans claimed that selling a portion of Real Madrid would mean selling the entire franchise, despite the fact that the latter is still the richest football team in the world.
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They also pointed out that Real Madrid’s membership policies have recently been changed, violating commitments to keep families members, and tarnishing its appeal.
Others praised the investor plan, which made sense of business and wouldn’t alter a hugely successful club that has won the Spanish domestic title 36 times and won 15 UEFA Champions League titles in a record-breaking amount.
Perez argued that it was “indispensable project” for the future of football to allow private equity investors, who frequently invest large sums of money in businesses that are not listed on public stock exchanges.
According to reports from The Associated Press news agency, Perez said he would discuss a statutory change with the club’s members on Sunday and that he would propose it during an extraordinary assembly to allow for the possibility of taking a minority stake in the club.
Although Real Madrid will continue to be a members’ club, he urged the establishment of a subsidiary where the 100 000 club members would always have complete control.
“On that basis, this subsidiary could simply incorporate a minority stake, such as 5%, never more than 10%, from one or more investors who are committed to investing for the very long term and willing to contribute their own resources.”
Perez argued that would be “the most eminently believable and clearest way to value our club.”
The 78-year-old added that it would allow the club to receive dividends from club members, which it is currently forbidden from doing.
Perez urged investors to “respect our values,” support the club’s expansion, and “help us protect our assets from external attacks.”
Real Madrid might be able to recoup its assets from investors, he claimed.
Perez repeatedly stated that the club’s members would never lose control.
He claimed that his proposal would allow the current 98,272 club members to be recognized as the true owners and have a future-determined membership limit.
No one will be able to alter the balance that guarantees Real Madrid’s independence and stability with the protection in place, Perez said. The members of today will be in charge of upholding our culture’s values and making sure our club continues to be a global football force for many generations to come.
The president of Real Madrid added that the change would “protect the club from external and internal attacks on our assets, and highlight their value in a way that we, as members, are all aware of the treasure we, as members, have in our hands” (p. 21).
Real Madrid is categorized as a nonprofit organization because its club members, or socios, own it, like Barcelona and a small number of other Spanish football clubs. This ownership structure has only ever existed for Real Madrid, which was established in 1902.
Large private investors can claim tax breaks as a result of this ownership structure, which also grants them the right to obtain a majority controlling stake in the clubs.
Real Madrid was named the world’s richest football team for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, with an estimated market value of $6.75 billion, as reported by the Forbes List. Additionally, it was the first club to generate $1 billion in revenue.
With the nonprofit status, Spanish clubs can keep some of their clubs’ traditions alive and have members who are active in the organizations.
The example of Joan Laporta, the current president of the other Spanish mega club, Barcelona, was cited by Graham Hunter, a British football journalist with a focus on Spanish football.
In seven years, Laporta went from being a member and a lawyer to becoming the club’s president, he said.
In stark contrast, football teams in England and the United States, including Inter Miami and Manchester United, can be owned by individuals, businesses, and occasionally even be acquired on public stock exchanges, creating more commercialized ownership structures.
It means that their club’s performances are frequently focused on more tactical things like profit maximization, whereas in Spain, fans are the owners of the club, not large private investors, giving them the opportunity to implement longer-term business plans.
This could help this well-known Spanish club to resemble its foreign rivals if Perez’s plan is implemented.
Should the new minority ownership laws be implemented, Bernard Arnault, the famous, multi-billionaire manager of Louis Vuitton, was named in Spanish media as a potential investor in the club.
Some Real Madrid supporters disapproved of Perez’s desire to open the club to large private investors.
Perez had previously promised to keep the club open to members, according to former season ticket holder David Garcia at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
Florentino Perez misled the audience once more on Sunday, according to Perez. He informed Al Jazeera that he had informed us that he had informed us that members’ children or grandchildren had to be in order to stop a Russian or Chinese person from joining the club.
Garcia continued, noting that Chinese and other foreigners had recently been listed on membership lists and that the admissions procedures had changed frequently in recent years.
Former Real Madrid Veterans Pena vice president Alejandro Dominguez questioned why it was necessary to find additional investors to boost the finances of such a successful club.
“I don’t understand why we need more money given that we are already the world’s richest club”? he told Al Jazeera.
However, Fernando Valdez, a long-time supporter of Real Madrid and a member of the La Gran Familia supporters’ club, asserted that the change would not harm the club’s character.
“It would be worrying if we were selling off significant amounts of the club to raise money to compete with Paris Saint-Germain,” the statement read. But that is not how he said.
“We need to know more details about this, but it doesn’t seem like anything to worry about,” the statement read. Nothing is five percent or ten percent.
Perez’s ownership plan, according to David Alvarez, who writes about Real Madrid for El Pais newspaper.
“This will enable the club to return rewards to socios (club members).” The law currently forbids them from doing that. They aren’t trying to do that because they would need to sell a lot more stock to compete with the other large clubs in Europe.
According to a recent United Nations report, the occupied Palestinian territory’s economy is experiencing its most severe collapse ever, fueled by the magnitude of Israel’s genocide against Gaza and persistent restrictions on movement and trade.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report on Monday, in which it stated that the occupied territory had experienced one of the worst economic collapses ever to occur in the world since 1960 as a result of two years of Israeli military operations and persistent curbs.
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According to the statement, “Occupied Palestinian Territory has reversed decades of socioeconomic progress in the occupation,” referring to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
It warned that Gaza is “the most severe economic crisis on record”.
Despite a six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Israel continues to attack Gaza as a result of the findings’ publication.
An estimated 1, 139 people were killed and 240 were taken as captives in Gaza after an attack by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel responded by starting a bombing campaign and strengthening its long-standing blockade of Gaza, putting a 16-year siege into total stranglehold. More than 300 people have been killed since the ceasefire’s start last month, with at least 69 of those killed, 733 of those wounded, and 170 of those who were also killed.
By the end of last year, the Palestinian gross domestic product (GDP) had fallen to its 2010 level, while the GDP per capita had fallen to the same level as in 2003, erasing 22 years of development in less than two years.
In Gaza, GDP decreased by 83 percent over the previous year, or $ 362,0, compared to $ 362,0, or $ 86,0, or $ 362,0. The world’s lowest GDP per person was $161, which is below the lowest level ever.
According to the report, nearly two decades of Israeli-imposed restrictions on trade, movement, and access have resulted in a near-total dependence on external aid, while Israeli attacks have damaged approximately 174,500 structures in Gaza, rendering the region’s “utter ruin”
In addition, there are employment losses and access restrictions in the occupied West Bank, which are also the region’s most severe economic decline ever.
The report continued, “Distances have been wiped out by the steepest economic contraction on record across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
According to the report, Israel’s inability to pay salaries, maintain services, and fund reconstruction efforts has significantly worsened the situation, severely restricting the government’s ability to pay salaries and support reconstruction efforts.
Israel was withholding $4 billion in tax revenues, according to the PA on Monday.
UNCTAD demanded a comprehensive recovery plan supported by coordinated international assistance, the restoration of fiscal transfers, and urgent measures to ease trade, movement, and investment constraints. It estimated that the cost of reconstruction and recovery in Gaza alone would be more than $70 billion.
Recovery to pre-oct-2023 GDP levels could take decades, it said, despite substantial aid.
The organization also warned that the destruction brought on by Israel’s war and systemic restrictions will result in a long-term decline in the Palestinian economy without a full, large-scale intervention.
According to UNCTAD, the ceasefire reached in October must be sustained for any meaningful recovery.
Ukraine, Kyiv, and a menacing ultimatum for Ukraine could not be worse.
As civilians in the city of Zaporizhzhia hear new, harrowing notes in their almost nightly cannonade, the sound of heavy gliding bombs, Russian troops, drones, and fog-generating robots have slammed the southeast of the front line.
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As the sun sets at 4 p.m. and the night temperatures drop below freezing, Russian shelling continues to destroy Ukraine’s transmission and power infrastructure, causing hours-long blackouts.
Following overnight Russian attacks in Kyiv, at least six people were killed, and Ukraine was in a state of mourning again on Tuesday. At least three people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the southern Rostov region in Russia.
Trump’s strategy, which favors Russia’s involvement in the war, is a bitter reality check and a squandered opportunity, in the eyes of some Ukrainian service members.
Bohdan, a Ukrainian drone operator on leave from the eastern front, told Al Jazeera that the collective West’s “helplessness and cynicism are endless.”
He said, “They kept withholding military aid, couldn’t agree on how to respond, and we kept paying for their indecisiveness with our blood, the blood of our children,” while keeping his last name under wraps, as per rules of the wartime.
He maintains some optimism, stating that Moscow’s potential is limitless.
They seized 1% of our territory three years ago, and it resulted in a million soldiers being killed or wounded, according to Bohdan.
Russian forces withdrew from areas in the east and south of Kyiv, northern Ukraine, and all of its regions in the wake of overwhelming successes in early 2022.
Every town they seized since then is said to have cost them tens of thousands of service members.
He sarcastically joked, “At that rate, they will have wasted every Russian man, and it still won’t conquer us.”
Ukraine has been roiled by a corruption scandal involving Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s closest allies, who came to power in 2019 on an anticorruption ticket.
Ukrainians were gutted and betrayed when Trump threatened to freeze military aid if Kyiv refused to sign it by Thursday, November 27 when he offered a 28-point peace plan.
“Everything is against us, everyone is against us.” And now, the White House’s halfwit wants us to capitulate. Yevheniya Demyanenko, 42, a seller of seeds, pots, and fertilizer in southeast Kyiv, said, “Again.”
She questioned Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been huddled in a warm overcoat, about having “something so disgustingly compromising on]Trump] that he betrays everything that America is built on as a gasoline-fueled power generator rattled outside her shop while a pale lamp, a small heater, and electronic devices.
Later, Washington claimed that the deadline was “fluid.”
According to a Kyiv-based analyst, Trump’s plan resembles the Kremlin’s wish list, with few security guarantees for Ukraine and short, vague clauses.
In the event that Ukraine “attacks” Russia, Kyiv forfeits its undefined security guarantees. Another requirement that Ukraine make clear in its constitution is that it disband NATO.
The plan, according to a former Russian diplomat, is a triple success in terms of Ukraine, Washington’s diplomacy, and Europe’s entire security structure.
Boris Bondarev, who resigned from his position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in protest of Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claimed that the plan “restricts Ukraine’s sovereignty, offers no credible security guarantees, and signals Washington’s willingness to give ground to the Kremlin.”
Putin sees it as a case in point for the US’s weakness and as a chance for NATO to reform its entire security structure, he said.
The proposal’s “victim and the aggressor were equal,” said Mariia Kucherenko, an expert with the Come Back Alive think tank.
Has Ukraine ever attacked Russia? Or do they refer to “efforts to reclaim occupied Ukrainian territories”?
She also criticized a provision that stated that Washington would “de facto recognize” the Donbass and the southeast of Luhansk and Donetsk as being Russian.
About three-quarters of Donetsk and the majority of Luhansk are controlled by Russia, and Kyiv wants to cede the rest, including fortified fortifications and commanding heights that might lessen Moscow’s influence in Ukraine.
Moscow agrees to halt northbound isolation and freeze the southern front-line.
Kucherenko claimed that the plan does not go into great detail about the safeguards that underlie Russia’s “de jure” control.
She also criticizes a laconic provision that doesn’t specify “after what” for the phrase “holding elections in 100 days” in Ukraine?
If there are sanctions for violating a ceasefire, and who would oversee and enforce them? She pondered.
There won’t be a ceasefire, according to Kucherenko, “until there are… answers to these questions.”
She added that any elections held after a ceasefire rather than a full peace settlement run a high security risk for the electorate.
Another query is looming. Who will secure the votes of Ukrainian refugees living abroad or in occupied regions?
Most of the people in occupied areas were forced to obtain Russian passports by Moscow-appointed “authorities,” who would then compel them to resign from their jobs and provide them with medical and legal services.
Kucherenko remarked, “There are many questions and there isn’t a single answer.”
The plan, according to her, resembles a “classic” intelligence operation because it publishes Moscow’s wish list without taking into account Kyiv’s or the European Union’s positions, she continued.
The publication was based on Ukraine’s political and energy crises and the anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity, which erupted on November 21, 2013, and established a pro-Western government.
With all of this in mind, Kucherenko said Ukrainian diplomats “need to keep our heads cool, communicate with European partners, and define the Ukrainian position firmly, calmly, and consequently.”
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, stated on Monday that Kyiv would not consent to granting the country’s 600, 000-strong military vetoes and that it would not accept its recognition of its occupation.
Any peace, according to Kyiv, should be “dignified” and “lasting,” and the plan needs to be updated and refined.
Meanwhile, leaders in Europe predicted that the strategy should include a ceasefire right away, allow Kyiv to eventually join NATO, and use frozen Russian funds to bring Ukraine back.
The response to the US proposal from both the Ukrainian and European countries was described as “a pure ” leave-us-alone ” declaration, ” said researcher Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University.
The EU has a chance to accept five to seven million Ukrainian refugees from frozen cities, he said, and Russia has good chances of reaching the outskirts of Zaporizhia and Dnipro by spring.
After rumors of potential US military action in Venezuela, tensions between the two countries have grown.
Venezuela’s “Cartel de los Soles,” which the US claimed is led by President Nicolas Maduro, was declared a foreign “terrorist” by the US on Monday. Washington has not provided any supporting evidence. Although it is not a coordinated cartel, Venezuelans refer to officials who are involved in corruption.
Following a “potentially hazardous situation” in Venezuelan airspace, the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning to several airlines.
Following months of military expansion in the Caribbean Sea as part of US claims to combat narcotics, the advisory was issued. Dan Caine, a top US military officer, has also been traveling to the Caribbean.
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, claimed last month that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. This highlights how US intervention has historically been conducted in Latin America.
A strike on Venezuelan territory would significantly worsen the months-long US operation there, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 80 people in clashes on boats accused of drug trafficking.
The US actions have been denounced by President Maduro. The alleged drug cartel’s designation as “terror” was described by the Venezuelan government as a “ridiculous lie” on Monday to support “an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.”
Trump has stepped up attacks on Venezuela since his White House re-election in January 2025, going against Joe Biden’s lead stance on engaging with Maduro.
However, after leftist former president Hugo Chavez’s ascension to power in 1999, the tensions and distrust between Washington and Caracas date back almost a quarter of a century. Following Chavez’s passing in 2013, Maduro assumed office as president.
Venezuela and the US have been at odds with one another since Trump’s first term as president in January 2025, and this is where Washington has come from since the late 1990s.
Prior to the rise of socialist President Chavez, Caracas and Washington largely maintained economic ties. In the first half of the 20th century, US companies made an investment in the oil sector, and by the 1920s, Venezuela’s oil exports were in the US.
However, Chavez’s nationalization of the oil industry and outcry against US imperial interests in Latin America strained the bonds. In an effort to get the state oil company’s share of all new oil projects, Chavez pushed out US oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in 2007. However, another US oil major, Chevron, is still in business.
Hugo Chavez, the president of the Bolivarian Revolution, campaigns against an anti-establishment, anti-US platform. Venezuela and the US collided in the wake of his early attempts to rewrite the constitution and later to nationalize the oil industry.
As Chavez strengthens ties with Russia, China, and Iran, US-Venezuela ties become less and less.
Venezuela expels US-backed diplomats and NGOs and accuses Washington of trying to stoke the country’s instability. Venezuela is criticized by the US for its authoritarian policies and media restrictions.
Chavez’s government expands social initiatives domestically, which are funded by high oil prices, but economic mismanagement and corruption start to thwart growth.
Chavez is sacked for 48 hours in a short-lived coup. Venezuela denies that Washington supports the plot, accusing Venezuela of doing so. The catalyst for 20 years of mistrust is this particular incident.
Maduro, his long-term deputy, narrowly wins the presidency following Hugo Chavez’s passing. His presidency is immediately marred by economic stagnation, corruption scandals, and US-to-US relations that are already in decline.
The US imposes sanctions and visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials in response to mounting protests and human rights violations.
Venezuela is at a turning point as a result of sanctions that only make the economy worse and cause severe food and drug shortages. The country’s migration is soaring, and inflation is rising.
Venezuela’s financial markets are hampered by US restrictions on debt purchase and by US restrictions on purchasing Venezuelan bonds. As Venezuela’s economy collapses under years of mismanagement and hyperinflation, sanctions on oil imports become more severe. In 2019, inflation peaks at 345 percent. In April 2025, it stands at 172 percent.
A political crisis results from Maduro’s contentious 2018 re-election. The majority of the opposition’s primary candidates were prohibited from running, leading to the boycott of the elections.
Juan Guaido, a figure in the opposition, is elected president interim after receiving support from the US and numerous allies. Venezuela’s oil, gold, mining, and banking sectors are subject to more severe sanctions by Washington.
In a tense election, Maduro defeated Edmundo Gonzalez, an independent opposition candidate, once more. The opposition disputed the election results announced by election officials in Maduro’s favor, displaying vote tallies from various booths that appeared to indicate a comfortable win for Gonzales. The election’s organization received criticism for how it was conducted.