Barcelona board unhappy with Copa Del Rey final kickoff time

Barcelona face Sevilla in the Copa Del Rey finals on May 22nd and Barcelona board spokesperson Josep Vives has expressed his disappointment at the timing of the final.

This year’s finals will be played at the Vicente Calderon at 9:30 local time to maximise the TV audience in Spain. The evening start, however, inconveniences players and fans who will have to travel and stay overnight at the Spanish capital.

After a board meeting at Barcelona, reporters were also told that the club was unhappy that fans in the middle east and far east could also miss the finals due to its prohibitive timing.

"We're very annoyed with the Spanish FA as we had asked them to speak with Mediaset to reflect on the kickoff time," Vives said. "It was important for fans of Barcelona and Sevilla and also we will lose an opportunity to export this final to the Asian market. At 6 p.m. we could have people in Asia watching the game. At 9:30 it is more difficult."

Barcelona are also in the midst of a super tight La Liga race and the match against local rivals Espanyol could prove to be crucial. in 2007, a famous goal by Raul Tamudo called the Tamudazo now had denied Barcelona the title. However, Vives said the issue had not come up in recent talks.

"The Tamudazo is a long time ago now," he said. "We did not talk about it at the board meeting. When you are positive it gets the emotions going. We did talk about having a great team and we want to write a new chapter in the club's history."

Barcelona could begin new season without shirt sponsor

Barcelona has begun manufacturing next season’s club shirts without a sponsor after failing to tie down a new deal with Qatar Airways. Barcelona’s vice-president of marketing, Manel Arroyo, announced in March that the club had spoken with Nike and that “the first shirts of the season will be without a sponsor”.

And according to Sport English, the club has yet to tie down a new deal and are now set to begin manufacturing the shirt without a sponsor. It would be the first time in 10 years that Barcelona has not had a shirt sponsor, as the club only began featuring sponsors on its shirts in the 2005-06 season.

With previous sponsors including Unicef and Qatar Foundation, the club was most recently sponsored by Qatar Airways in a €60 million deal, but the club did not respect the contract after the board’s new elections which resulted in sponsorship not being renewed for next season. While the marketing team has been working hard to put pen to paper on a new contract, the time has come for next season’s shirts to be manufactured and Barcelona has decided to go ahead without a sponsor for the time being.