I should start by saying that I'm not a web accessibility expert. I work in web development and deal with accessibility features regularly, but I've never had formal training in the field.
To practice and learn, I ran a series of accessibility audits, and at the same time explored whether there's any correlation between digital quality and success on the soccer field (though I presumed superior finances would drive both). And honestly, analyzing the web standards of top‑level clubs just sounded like a fun challenge.
All of this is to say: take this article with a grain of salt. It's one person running tests, with the level of scientific rigor you'd expect from that. And yes, just like AI, I can make mistakes.
Each team has a card like the one shown below, providing the core results at a glance. The surrounding text includes commentary and a short summary of what the card reveals.
I started with automated tools (the criteria and process are described at the end of the article), but those results felt incomplete. So I added a more "human" layer by manually testing and scoring accessibility features. These may not be the criteria everyone uses, but they're the ones I followed. If you prefer different ones, I encourage you to run your own tests and write about them. I'd genuinely love to read it.
If I recall correctly, this was the only home page with a form in it (not counting the search box), and that introduced some new issues that took points from them. Automated accessibility tests gave a high score (e.g., all images had alt attribute) but manual test proved things were not what they seemed (e.g., all images had alt attribute with "null" as value). Using the screenreader there were a lot of "link, image, null" messages.
Athletic Athletic's site relies heavily on images that contain text (many of them with alt=""), including several inside links that have no other content. Combine that with long, non‑skippable sections that seem to go on forever, plus a menu that remains reachable even when hidden, and the accessibility score takes a predictable hit. On the positive side, the site handles zoom surprisingly well.
The language menu on Atlético's site is confusing when using a keyboard. You can open it normally, but then you're forced to tab through the entire main menu before reaching the popup with alternative languages (this happened with several teams). It's not a feature people use often, but the one time you need it, the experience shouldn't be disorienting. The site follows the reduced‑motion setting strictly, which is rare: if reduced motion is enabled, all animations and transitions stop completely.
Overall, Barcelona's site performed reasonably well compared to the rest of La Liga… but given the club's history, resources, and global reach, the results feel underwhelming. Especially considering the types of issues that surfaced: a poor heading hierarchy, a sticky header that consumes half the screen when zoomed, and focus indicators that clip or jump to hidden elements creating confusion.
Betis' homepage presents several accessibility challenges: carousels that animate and slide even with reduced‑motion enabled, menus that open but can't be reached until you tab through a sea of unrelated items, and a noticeable amount of text with low contrast against its background. In their defense, green is a notoriously tricky color when it comes to contrast… but still. I expected more from a team like Betis.
I liked the grid in the header of Celta's website, and the page performed decently in automated tests. But manual testing quickly brought the score down: no level‑1 heading, and only a single level‑2 heading (buried at the bottom in the merchandise store)? The page is in Spanish, yet somehow the button labels appear in English (the risks of copy‑paste)? And videos in the video carousel that aren't reachable via keyboard navigation?
The 95 in structure can be misleading. The site earned it thanks to strong automated test results and only three HTML errors. Unfortunately, structure is the metric with the least weight, and the manual tests (which carry the most weight) yielded the lowest score of any team. Issues included faint or missing outlines, images with alt attributes equal to the file name (ouch!), or components that only worked with a mouse. And that's just to name a few; the list goes on.
Elche's landing page is so minimal that it earns points almost by default because many of the tested metrics simply don't apply (note to self: revise grading criteria for next year). There are some nice touches: gradients used to boost contrast, and a carousel that respects reduced‑motion settings (the same widget many other teams use). But there are also questionable choices; most notably, the page doesn't contain a single heading!
Espanyol was the only team to score below 50 overall (a failing grade in Spain). From missing outlines to menus accessible only by mouse, to images without alt attributes and a broken navigation that traps the keyboard, the site struggled across the board. It failed every automated test except Lighthouse… which brought the scores up!
There are a few teams that use the same white‑labeled web template, customized only with club colors. Out of the box, it delivers solid SEO results and decent accessibility. But it also serves as a reminder that content and authoring choices can break even the most accessible template. Getafe seems to be one of the clubs using it, and fortunately, they handled their content reasonably well apart from some things: no proper headings (none at all, to be precise) and a handful of related screen‑reader issues… but little beyond that.
Levante's landing page is a good example of how my scoring criteria can favor simpler pages with limited content. With little text, few images, and only a handful of widgets and components, the site is easy to use largely because of its simplicity. Still, there's room for improvement: making proper use of HTML landmarks and hierarchical elements (the page has only a single heading!) and ensuring that outlines don't break would improve accessibility.
Another example of a template that could be far more accessible if the content followed suit… but it doesn't. The homepage suffers from missing headings, clipped outlines, and poor image labeling. Still, Malage homepage's simplicity and low volume of content worked in its favor during scoring, landing the site in a respectable second place
The disappearance of outlines across most elements on Osasuna's site dealt a major blow in manual testing. And that wasn't the only issue: carousels autoplay without pause or focus control, ignore reduced‑motion settings, and oddly mix Spanish content with English controls. These problems compounded to drag the score down. Overall, Osasuna's homepage has significant room for improvement, placing the team in the lower half of the accessibility rankings.