The 2023–24 Russian Cup is the 32nd season of the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

knockout tournament since the dissolution of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The competition started on 25 July 2023 and will conclude on 2 June 2024. The winner of the cup would normally gain entry into the

2024–25 UEFA Europa League The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League was the 54th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 16th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. This was the first season played under ...

; however, on 28 February 2022, Russian football clubs were suspended from FIFA & UEFA international competitions until further notice due to the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

Representation of clubs by league

Russian Premier League The Russian Premier League (RPL; , ''Rossiyskaya premyer-liga''; РПЛ), also written as Russian Premier Liga, is a professional association football league in Russia and the highest level of the Russian football league system. It was establis ...

(1): 16 clubs *

Russian First League The Russian First League (, Pervaya liga), formerly called Russian First Division () and Russian Football National League (FNL) () is the second level of the Football in Russia#League system, Russian football league system. The Russian Professio ...

(2): 18 clubs * Division A of

Russian Second League The Russian Second League (), formerly the Russian Professional Football League, are both the third (Division A) and fourth level (Division B) of Russian professional Association football, football. History In 1998–2010, it was run by the :ru: ...

(3): 18 clubs (without 2

farm team In sports, a farm team (also referred to as farm system, developmental system, feeder team, or nursery club) is generally a Team sport, team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any s ...

s) * Division B of

(4): 42 clubs (without 16 farm teams and 2

Crimean Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrai ...

teams) * Amateur leagues: ** Third division (5): 8 clubs ** Fourth division (regional leagues) (6): 2 clubs **

Media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

amateur clubs (7): 3 clubs * Total: 107 clubs.

Distribution

The teams of Premier League and the other teams will qualify to knockout phase in two different paths. Premier league teams will play in the RPL path group stage with a double

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

, divided into 4 groups with 4 teams in each group, while the other teams will play in the regions path qualification, starting with 1/256 round until 1/8 round with 1 match in each stage.

Round dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows:

Qualifying round (regions path)

The draw for qualifying stage rounds 1 and 2 was held on 17 July 2023.

Round 1

Date of matches was determined on 21 July 2023. Entered clubs: * 13 clubs from Amateur leagues * 21 lowest clubs from Russian Second League Division B Times are MSK (

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a UTC offset, time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, ...

), as listed by

RFU The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby (WR) in 1886. It prom ...

(local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 2

Entered clubs: * 17 winners of Round 1 * 21 highest clubs from Russian Second League Division B, including FC Irkutsk * 18 clubs from Russian Second League Division A Date of matches was determined on 15 August 2023. Times are MSK (

), as listed by

(local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 3

The draw for round 3 defining home and away team was held on 25 August 2023. Entered clubs: * 28 winners of Round 2 Times are MSK (

), as listed by

(local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 4

The draw was held on 15 September 2023 at 12:00 MSK.
Entered clubs: * 14 winners of Round 3 * 18 clubs from

On 12 September draw procedure was released, that consisted of 2 phases. On the first phase 2 random balls with First League team from pot 2 was relocated to pot 1, then on the second phase usual draw procedure started. The teams from pot 1 played their matches in round 4 at home. The team from pot 2 that was replocated to pot 1 is written in italics. The team was unknown until it will be drawn from pot 1. Times are MSK (

), as listed by

(local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 5

The draw was held on 29 September 2023 at 13:00 MSK.
Entered clubs: * 16 winners of Round 4

Round 6

The draw was held on 20 October 2023 at 12:00 MSK.
Entered clubs: * 8 winners of Round 5

Group stage (RPL path)

The draw for group stage was held on 24 June 2023 live on TV-channel «

Match TV Match! TV () is a Russian free-to-air federal sports television channel owned by Gazprom Media. The channel began broadcasting on November 1, 2015, and had been created in accordance with the order of Russian president Vladimir Putin, with the a ...

». 16 teams of the Russian Premier League (RPL) will start the tournament from the group stage (4 teams in each group). The teams will play 6 matches in the group stage: * 1st day — 25–27 July; * 2nd day — 8–10 August; * 3rd day — 29–30 August; * 4th day — 19–21 September; * 5th day — 3–5 October; * 6th day — 31 October – 2 November. Composition of the pots is based on results of the

2022–23 Russian Premier League The 2022–23 Russian Premier League (known as the Mir Russian Premier League, also written as Mir Russian Premier Liga for sponsorship reasons) was the 31st season of the premier football competition in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

2022–23 Russian First League The 2022–23 Russian First League was the 31st season of Russia's second-tier football league since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The season began on 16 July 2022, and will have a 3 month winter break between game weeks 20 and 21 (November ...

. In the same group there can't be more than 2 teams from Moscow, also

FC Krasnodar FC Krasnodar is a Russian professional football club based in Krasnodar that plays in the Russian Premier League. They are the league's reigning champions. The club was founded in 2008. In 2009, the club was promoted to the Russian First Divis ...

FC Rostov FC Rostov () is a Russian professionalism in association football, professional football club based in Rostov-on-Don. The club competes in the Russian Premier League, playing their home matches at the Rostov Arena. History Soviet era (1930-199 ...

and

Fakel Voronezh FC Fakel Voronezh () is a Russian professional football club based in Voronezh. Founded in 1947, the club has played in the Soviet Top League and the Russian Premier League. The club will return to the Russian First League in the 2025–26 season ...

can't be in the same group due to logistics restrictions in this cities. Times are MSK (

), as listed by

(local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group A

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group B

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group C

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group D

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Knockout phase

In the

knockout phase A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

, as in the qualification, the teams will be divided into 2 paths (brackets). The teams in RPL path (upper bracket) will play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis. The teams that will lose after 2 legs in RPL path, except for the path final, will have the second chance in the regions path. The teams in the regions path (lower bracket) will play against each other in 1 match. Each round, except the path final, consists of 2 phases. In the quarter-finals first phase teams from the regions path qualification will play against the third placed team of RPL path group stage, then on the second stage they will play against RPL path quarter-finals loser. In the semi-finals first phase the teams play with winners of the previous round of the regions path, the second phase is the same as in quarter-finals. Unlike the previous season, the team that loses in the final of the upper bracket is eliminated from the tournament and will not play in the final of the lower bracket, so the final of Regions path consists of only 1 stage. The winners of both paths will play in super final.

Quarter-finals

The draw was held on 3 November 2023 at 12:00 MSK live on TV-channel «

». In the quarter-final matches of RPL path teams from same group can't play with each other. Runners-up of group stage will play first matches at home. Winners of regions path round 6 will play stage 1 matches of regions path at home as well. Times are MSK (UTC+3), as listed by RFU (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

RPL path

---- ---- ----

Regions path

=Stage 1

=Stage 2

Semi-finals

The RPL path semi-final draw was held on 15 March 2024 live on

TV-channel.

RPL path

----

Regions path

The region path stage 1 draw was held on 4 April 2024. The region path stage 2 draw and the draw to determine the host in the RPL final was held on 17 April 2024.

=Stage 1

=Stage 2

Path finals

RPL path

Regions path

The host was determined by a draw on 2 May 2024.

Final

References

External links

Official page

Page on Russian Premier League website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 Russian Cup Russian Cup seasons

Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

Russian Cup