If you’ve visited Spain, you’ll know things happen later there.
Some restaurants don’t close until 1am. High-profile radio and TV shows go on into the early hours.
And football follows a similar rhythm.
On Tuesday, Real Madrid played Alaves at the Santiago Bernabeu in a La Liga game that kicked off at 9pm local time, so only finished around 11pm. Their arch-rivals Barcelona were at home to Getafe at the same time last night. The first Madrid derby of the season, meanwhile, takes place in that slot on Sunday — as will the first Clasico of the season, at the Bernabeu on Saturday, October 26.
But 9pm is not even the latest kick-off — games have previously started at 10pm and even 11pm. Last season’s Copa del Rey final between Athletic Bilbao and Real Mallorca began at 10pm and then went to extra time and penalties — when Athletic’s Alex Berenguer scored the decisive spot kick, it was almost 1am.
So, what’s behind those times and how do fans feel about them? The Athletic explains.
How late are games played in Spain?
La Liga has a range of kick-off times — unlike the Premier League, where several matches are always at 3pm on the Saturday. Last weekend, Spanish top-flight matches were played at 9pm on the Friday, at 2pm, 4.15pm, 6.30pm and 9pm on both Saturday and Sunday, and 9pm on Monday.
Real Madrid’s next four fixtures in La Liga begin at 9pm, as do three of Barcelona’s. Atletico started their 2024-25 season with three games in a row at 9.30pm, on a Monday, a Sunday and a Wednesday.
It’s worth pointing out all three clubs are used to the 9pm slot, as this is when the vast majority of Champions League matches take place in Spain and central Europe.
The moon appears during Valencia’s match against Barcelona in August (Aitor Alcalde/Getty Images)
Why are so many games played late?
It’s certainly true that late kick-offs are more accepted in Spain because of the country’s later schedule in broader life.
“In Spain, 9pm isn’t a time that scares us,” says Alfredo Relano, a former editor-in-chief of Madrid sports paper AS. “We go to bed late. There are sports radio shows that start at 11.30pm with a huge audience.”
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According to Relano, the traditional kick-off time in Spanish football used to be 4.30pm, but he remembers games starting at 10.30pm in Cadiz’s traditional pre-season tournament, the Ramon de Carranza Trophy, to deal with high summer temperatures in that city on the southern coast.
Relano says late kick-offs in Spain started to catch on when Real Madrid installed floodlights before their third European Cup campaign in 1957-58, meaning night-time kick-offs were possible. The idea was to attract people who finished work late.
“Madrid put on those midweek games at 8.30pm so that people who worked in shops or businesses could attend — you could be working until 6pm or 7pm,” he says.
Kick-offs at 9pm or later were almost certainly linked to the rise of televised football. Relano says regional channels were allowed to show one match per week from the late 1980s. They inevitably chose the Saturday 9pm match given this was “prime time” for Spaniards — though Relano says this also led to some whinging.
TV has played a role in the rise of late kick-offs (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
“Those who owned restaurants complained (regarding the near 11pm finishes) because Saturday was a day to go out to those places,” he says. “If a game was on from 8pm-10pm, it didn’t have as much of an influence (on their business). Some restaurants even filed lawsuits based on that.”
La Liga sources — who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships — say the Spanish top flight uses staggered kick-off times to allow fans to watch all 10 matches across a weekend if they want to. They say this has taken place since the 2011-12 season and that there have been variations of a regular prime-time slot of 9pm or later since 2002-03. They also say the approach allows matches to be played later in places where heat earlier in the day could be an issue — as well as helping with fixture congestion.
What do fans and the players think of it?
La Liga’s 9pm kick-offs on weeknights or Sundays have led to backlash from some fans.
Atletico Madrid’s ‘social commission’ — a club initiative designed to give a voice to fans — put out a statement this month in which it objected to having to play an “immense majority” of Sunday night matches. It complained that children and travelling supporters have not been able to attend games because of that run of late starts in the opening weeks of this season. La Liga sources say these kick-off times generally evened out for teams across the course of a full 10-month campaign.
“Even if 9pm isn’t as late for a Spaniard as it is for an English person, that kick-off time causes serious problems for matchgoing fans,” says Emilio Abejon, general secretary of the federation of shareholders and members of Spanish football (FASFE). “For children, it means they can’t go to the game. It’s because TV has been given even more power than in some other countries.”
Rodrygo during Real Madrid’s recent night-time game against Mallorca (Oscar J Barroso/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Spanish football doesn’t have the same away-fan culture as the English or German leagues, but Abejon says late kick-offs discourage visiting supporters even more. La Liga does not release its kick-off times before the season starts to the same extent as the Premier League, but confirms them bit by bit as it goes along — sometimes only a few weeks before the games are played.
“For Spanish fans, the 9pm kick-off on a Saturday isn’t just accepted, it’s great,” says Eduardo Fernandez, president of the international union of Atletico Madrid supporters groups. “The problem is a Sunday night — nobody likes that. Nobody who goes to the ground that is — TV customers don’t give a damn.”
Last year, Athletic Bilbao defender Yeray Alvarez criticised La Liga’s kick-off times before his side played two games in a row that started at 10pm on Thursdays.
“It’s f*****g annoying,” he told a press conference. “Football belongs to the fans and those times aren’t good for anyone. It’s unacceptable.”
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So what is a traditional kick-off time in Spain?
“The tradition in Spain is football happens on Sunday afternoon,” says Abejon. “Depending on the season, (kick-off would be) 4.30pm or 5pm. That’s been the tradition since the 1940s or 1950s.”
Abejon says that changed with the rise of televised football in the 1980s. When The Athletic looked at the latest weekend’s fixture list for the Spanish first and second division, we found there were five games at 4.15pm, five at 6.30pm, three at 2pm, two at 8.30pm… and six at 9pm.
Like it or not, TV may have turned the 9pm kick-off into a Spanish football tradition.
(Top photo: Burak Akbulut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
