23 November 2019

National Super Cup on foreign soil

For second consecutive time the Spanish Super Cup is going to be played outside its borders. After Africa, next year the new format will happen in Asia for the next three seasons. Saudi Arabia is going to host the first ever final-four event of the competition, thus the teams who will travel to the Arabian Peninsula are: the defending champions (Barcelona), Cup winners (Valencia), club that finished second at the local championship of 2018-19 season (Atletico Madrid) plus the third team (Real Madrid).
According to the local sports daily newspaper (As) the host country have to pay 30 million euros, while half of that money will split this quartet. Two million euros are going to receive the champions of the tournament, 1.4 million will belong to the losing finalist, whilst the remaining two teams are going to be awarded with a million euros from the prize fund. Without the third-fourth match classification, the dates for the three duels are: 08 and 09 January 2020 with the semi-finals, and the big final is going to be on 12 January 2020.
Until past Monday, when it was revealed where the competition will be staged, the hospitality country has been kept in secrecy until the last minute due to the pressure of Amnesty international organization which accuses Saudi Arabia of violating human rights, especially women. To ease a little bit of that pressure, a representative promised that females will be allowed to enter into the stadiums in a previous agreement with the Spanish football federation. Other competing candidate to bring the best four clubs was Qatar.

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