On compatibility of the ell-adic realisations of an abelian motive

In this article we introduce the notion of a quasi-compatible system of Galois representations. The quasi-compatibility condition is a slight relaxation of the classical compatibility condition in the sense of Serre. The main theorem that we prove is the following: Let $M$ be an abelian motive, in the sense of Yves Andr\'e. Then the $\ell$-adic realisations of $M$ form a quasi-compatible system of Galois representations. (In fact, we actually prove something stronger. See theorem 5.1.) As an application, we deduce that the absolute rank of the $\ell$-adic monodromy groups of $M$ does not depend on $\ell$. In particular, the Mumford-Tate conjecture for $M$ does not depend on $\ell$.