Spanish Super Cup games to go straight to penalty shoot-outs as player welfare measure

The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has taken a step in order to cutback on the amount of playing time that top level players are subject to in the modern game. With expanded Champions League games and a new 32 team Club World Cup scheduled for the summer of 2025, certain players at high profile clubs could end up playing in excess of 70 games during the current season. Today (Thursday, 10 October) the Spanish FA announced that extra-time periods in the Spanish Super Cup (both in the men’s and women’s editions) will be done away with and tied games will now be resolved via penalty shoot-outs.

A brief statement from the RFEF announced: “The Executive Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation has approved a change to the Regulatory Bases and Competition Rules to eliminate the extra time for the Spanish Super Cups, both in the men’s and women’s formats. With this change, the RFEF is responding to the requests of clubs participating in these tournaments and is trying to reduce the minutes of competition for footballers, as it has already done in other competitions such as the Copa de SM el Rey or the Copa Federación and in line with what is being implemented in other similar competitions at European and world level,” the Federation explained in a statement. In this way, if a match is tied at the end of regulation time, it will be decided directly in a penalty shoot-out.

Intense debate is currently raging within the football industry about the volume of matches and an over saturated fixture list with more and more high profile players complaining about the amount of matches they have to play and the physical consequences that this has. One of theses was Manchester City’s Rodrigo who even alluded to industrial action before sustaining an ACL injury that will see him sidelined for the rest of the 2024-25 season.

2025 Super Cup: Final four

The 2025 Spanish Super Cup will be staged in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and features the top two sides from the previous season LaLiga table (Real Madrid and FC Barcelona) along with the 23-24 Copa del Rey winner (Athletic Club) and beaten finalists (Real Mallorca) and is earmarked for early January with two semifinals and the final match on 12 January.