OMNISPORT 

Barcelona and Sevilla have called for the Copa del Rey kick-off to be moved forward due to concerns over fan travel.

The game is scheduled to take place at 20.30 on Sunday May 22 at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu, but both clubs have appealed to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to change to an earlier start time.

They have called on the RFEF to meet with Mediaset, who own broadcasting rights for the match, and agree to an earlier kick-off to allow fans to travel home in good time.

"Both clubs prefer the final to take place at either 6.00pm or 7.00pm CET as the match falls on a Sunday (May 22), meaning that the next day is a working day," Barca said in a statement.

"With both sets of fans needing to return to their respective homes from Madrid, the current kick-off would mean that they would not get back to Barcelona and Seville until extremely early in the morning of Monday.

"Therefore, both clubs want to make it public that the selection of the time of the final is a matter of will, and the fact that neither even have wanted to attend a requested of both clubs is a blatant disregard of sensitivity to both entities and their fans.

"Any kick-off time beyond 7.00pm is absolutely rejected by both clubs, who have come together to demand respect for their interests and assert their opinions on the Copa del Rey final."

Sevilla released a similar statement in which they expressed frustration that their "repeated" requests to the RFEF had so far been ignored.

"In spite of the reiteration on the part of both clubs concerning the meeting request, it has not occurred to date and the only communication received from the RFEF is that they do not want to discuss the issue and do not agree that a meeting should be held over this objective," they said.