Spanish Twitter explodes over English captions for Copa del Rey final

Angry Spanish football fans took to Twitter during the Copa del Rey final between Barcelona and Valencia (with Valencia taking the title 1-2) on Saturday night, indignant at state broadcaster TVE using English for the captions displayed during the match.

English used for TV captions during Barcelona v Valencia

The team line-ups and information about the referees were all shown in English, despite this being a Spanish domestic cup competition, being broadcast on the Spanish public television service.

As José Angel Sanz complained: “It’s unbelievable that in #Spain, for the Final of the #CopaDelRey, for the captions on the broadcast by @rtve to be in English. Assistant referees, fourth assistant, referee??? Is this normal @rfef (the Spanish FA)?? Can anyone explain this to me??”

This isn’t the first time this has happened in Spain. Last year’s edition of the Copa del Rey final saw the same thing happen, and in the Spanish Super Cup too. The explanation is that the rights to the match are worldwide and the signal for the game is set up for that, rather than the domestic Spanish market.

Half an hour into the match, the Spanish TV audience were left yet more bewildered when the game was stopped for a “Cooling Break”, leading @GaticoMisico to tweet ironically “I love the way they put “Cooling Break” for us because here in this country we mostly talk English. First official language of Espania.”

Equally, @futbol_ii slammed: “Final of the #CopaDelRey, #Barcelona and #ValenciaCF and they call the technical pause for the heat cooling break. Not in Catalan, Valenciano, Castellano, but bloody brazenly in English”.

Francisco Javier (@chabizg) was confused: “#CopaDelReyRTVE I don’t understand why the captions are in English. We’re in Spain and this is the final of the #CopaDelRey”.

And @manchegocamino tweeted: “What need is there to put cooling break in the #CopaDelRey. We’ve got an amazing vocabulary in Spain. They could have put ‘parada para refrescarse’ (literal translation), technical break or even 5 mins for a cigarette. But no, they had to put it in English”.