Do we like them?Do we like Iker Casillas?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A decent record and some real community work, held back by one tone-deaf 2022 post and a record that is thin on anything deeper.
Casillas is the goalkeeper's goalkeeper of his generation: a kid from Móstoles, on the outskirts of Madrid, who went on to captain Real Madrid and Spain. He has said his bond with his hometown is for life, and that is where he grew up and spent his childhood. Since hanging up the gloves he has moved into commentary and a role with the Real Madrid Foundation.
The stoush most people know him for is the October 2022 'I'm gay' post. A tweet from his account said as much, vanished soon after, and then he said the account had been hacked and apologised to the LGBTQ+ community. Openly gay Australian footballer Josh Cavallo called the exchange with ex-teammate Carles Puyol “beyond disrespectful”, and Puyol later called his own reply a clumsy joke and apologised. Plenty of people doubted the hack story, and he never gave a fuller explanation we could find.
On the harm check, that is the whole list. We found no campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, no anti-vax or climate-denial stuff, no political grievance posting and no dodgy company on his recent work. That makes the 2022 post a real stain, because a joke about coming out lands badly for queer fans, but it is a single incident rather than a pattern.
The recent noise is football banter. In July 2026, during the World Cup, he fired back at a fan online and called him “papanatas” (roughly, a bit of a sucker), according to Colombian outlet Publimetro. In May he said he did not want José Mourinho back at Real Madrid. Spicy, a bit petty, and nothing to do with how he treats anyone off the pitch.
Off the pitch there is some real substance. He was named deputy CEO of the Real Madrid Foundation in December 2020, and in January 2024 a Cruyff Court, a free-use football pitch, opened in his hometown with his own foundation among the partners. In July 2026 Spain's Supreme Court ordered a production company to pay him 30,000 euros for infringing his honour, so on that one he was the injured party.
Verdict expanded: he passes on being a decent bloke, and gets an asterisk on harm for the one bad post, which he apologised for and which has not been repeated in anything we found. The honest caveat is that the record is thinner than for most, so we are scoring him in the comfortable middle. Support him, but maybe skip the retweet of the next 'joke'.