Yet another Copa del Rey final will be upon us that will feature El Clásico rivals, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. However, this will not be about these teams going at it again. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 25 years, everyone knows more than enough about this rivalry. Yet, it seems that the RFEF still manages the Copa del Rey without caring for its domestic and international audience. It is such a shame that a historic competition is still run in such an incompetent manner.
Some of the biggest problems plaguing this competition are on display in the stands where attendance keeps dwindling. The interest in this competition seems to be decreasing because of the late kick offs and the minute chance that a small club will win this competition, let alone reach the final. Furthermore, the Copa needs to solve the issue of organizing the final with a venue and date already set in place.
The lack of fans in the stands this year was very discouraging. Copa del Rey is a historic cup for Barça, who are the all-time winning side of this competition, yet, the Camp Nou was hardly packed. It sure didn’t help that kick off was on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings at 10 PM. Other teams had late night kick offs too which is never a great idea for a midweek game. It’s pretty obvious what will happen when fans have the option of watching the game from the comfort of their home, or from the comfort of their bed with some of these late kick offs, or going to the game. They are most likely going to stay home and watch the game. Hence, RFEF needs to ensure the games kick off at a reasonable time of day since they will not pre-empt weekends for it or change to the format to a single leg competition like the FA Cup.
Speaking of the FA Cup, perhaps RFEF should look at the FA Cup’s blueprint and change the rules regarding the pairings for each round. Currently, Copa del Rey has starts off with random draws for each round until the competition goes down to 32 teams. The draw then allows us to know which teams will face each other all the way to the final. That basically can let fans know whether their club has a chance to make it to the final. RFEF should follow the FA Cup’s blueprint and have random draws for each round without any seedings to stop protecting the big clubs from facing one another early on. That would generate more interest for the fans and keep it unpredictable. Sure, the Clásico cup final would attract huge ratings but think of the long term health of this cup too if domestic interest diminishes.
The other big issue hurting this competition is that, unlike most countries, Spain does not have a “national stadium” to host a cup final. England has Wembley stadium in London to host the FA Cup, Germany has the Olympiastadion in Berlin as the venue for the German cup/DFB-Pokal final. Yet, RFEF opts to wait till the finalists have been decided before choosing a venue for the final. Clearly, a national stadium will never be built and I can imagine the outrage if the Santiago Bernabéu was appointed as such.
Perhaps RFEF should take a page out of NFL‘s book and select the venue years in advance. You don’t see the NFL deciding a few weeks before the Super Bowl on where it should take place. Heck, UEFA already have their venues selected for this season and next season’s Champions League finals. Sadly, the RFEF opts to just keep dragging its feet on decisions that any well run organization would already have figured out from the get go. However, this is La Liga and we have grown accustomed to where going forward is hindered by the league doing things backwards.
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