Barcelona vs Real Madrid: Copa del Rey final, El Clásico, score, stats and updates
The Copa del Rey is the most prestigious domestic Cup competition in Spanish soccer and while being crown champions is a big deal – especially for clubs outside of the top three (Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético), teams barely earn anything from winning it.
In the current game, it’s viewed as a trophy that counts toward winning trebles, etc. – and adding another notch to Madrid and Barça’s respective honors’ lists in their particular silverware rivalry, but the financial returns are nothing like those of other competitions.
The Copa del Rey’s modest prize money
The economic distribution system for this competition is complex and not particularly substantial, but, in short: Whoever wins the Cup, Real Madrid or Barcelona, will earn €1.2 million and whoever loses the final and finishes runner-up will earn €1 million – hardly any difference at all.
These figures are starkly contrasted with the winner of the Club World Cup later this summer. The winner of the tournament, which will debut in the United States, will pocket $125 million, (around €110.5 million).
To add more perspective, both Real Madrid and Barcelona are currently also battling to win LaLiga, which is worth €60 million to the eventual champions, and in the case of Barcelona, the Champions League as well, which could earn them around €100 million…
Why the difference? Because the aim of the Copa del Rey, since its format change in 1982, is to distribute money across all sections of Spanish football, not just the finalists.
The system is as follows: The Copa bring in around 33 million euros each season from television rights. That figure is divided up and dripped down into different branches and categories of the Spanish league system. To begin with, 90% goes to professional football (around 29.5 million euros) and the remaining 10% to amateur football and its Cup participants (just over three million).
How much prize money do La Liga teams get?
Now, let’s return to the 29.5 million euros dedicated to professional football, which is what concerns this year’s finalists: Real Madrid and Barcelona: 90% goes to clubs in the top division and 10% to those in the second tier.
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The 90 percent cut leaves around 26.5 million euros for the 20 LaLiga teams. And this is where the distribution ends – 50% is distributed identically among the 20 teams: Madrid, Barcelona and the other 18 will have already secured around 660,000 euros each.
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