2024–25 Russian Cup

The 2024–25 Russian Cup was the 33rd season of the Russian football knockout tournament since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The competition started on 30 July 2024 and concluded on 1 June 2025.

The winner of the cup would normally gain entry into the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League; 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.

Representation of clubs by league

* Russian Premier League (1): 16 clubs
* Russian First League (2): 18 clubs
* Division A of Russian Second League (3): 18 clubs (without 2 farm teams)
* Division B of Russian Second League (4): 42 clubs (without 17 farm teams and 2 Crimean teams)
* Amateur leagues:
** Third division (5): 8 clubs
** Fourth division (regional leagues) (6): 2 clubs
** Media 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, 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 15 July 2024.

Round 1

Entered clubs:
* 13 clubs from Amateur leagues
* 21 lowest clubs from Russian Second League Division B
Date of matches was determined on 24 July 2024.

Times are MSK (UTC+3), as listed by RFU (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
* 18 clubs from Russian Second League Division A
Date of matches was determined on 9 August 2024.

Round 3

Entered clubs:
* 28 winners of Round 2

The draw for round 3 defining home and away team was held on 23 August 2024. The schedule of the third round was held on 26 August 2024

Times are MSK (UTC+3), as listed by RFU (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 4

The draw was held on 8 September 2024 at 19:30 MSK live on TV-channel « Match Premier».
Entered clubs:
* 14 winners of Round 3
* 18 clubs from Russian First League

On 6 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 (UTC+3), as listed by RFU (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Round 5

The draw was held on 27 September 2023 at 15:00 MSK live on TV-channel «Match Premier».


Entered clubs:
* 16 winners of Round 4

Round 6

The draw was held on 18 October 2024 at 15:30 MSK live on TV-channel «Match Premier».


Entered clubs:
* 8 winners of Round 5

Group stage (RPL path)

The draw for group stage was held on 10 June 2024 live on TV-channel «Match TV».

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 — 30 July – 1 August;
* 2nd day — 13–15 August;
* 3rd day — 27–29 August;
* 4th day — 17–19 September;
* 5th day — 1–3 October;
* 6th day — 22–24 October.

Composition of the pots is based on results of the 2023–24 Russian Premier League and 2023–24 Russian First League. In the same group there can't be more than 2 teams from Moscow, also FC Krasnodar, FC Rostov and Fakel Voronezh can't be in the same group due to logistics restrictions in this cities.

Times are MSK (UTC+3), as listed by RFU (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, 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.

Like 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

Due do to calendar changes in this season (the matches of RPL path will held in November 2024), and with team from hard logistic travel, to form a schedule, the draw for RPL path was held on 8 September 2024 at 19:30 MSK live on TV-channel « Match Premier» (before end a group stage).

The draw will determine the grid for the quarter-finals of the RPL Path.

In the first round of the draw, two baskets are used: the first basket contains 4 balls with the names of the groups from the RPL Path group round (A-D). From the first basket, 2 balls are moved by blind draw to the second basket.

In the second round of the draw, balls are drawn alternately from the first and second baskets by blind lot, determining two pairs of groups (A-B and C-D, A-C and B-D, or A-D and B-C), in which clubs from one group (1st and 2nd places, respectively) will play clubs from the other corresponding group (2nd and 1st places, respectively) in the 1/4 finals of the upper bracket playoffs.

Finally, a draw is held to determine the host club in each pair.

Winners of regions path round 6 will play stage 1 matches of regions path at home as well.

RPL path

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Regions path

The regions path stage 1 draw was held on 1 November 2024 at 16:30 MSK live on TV-channel « Match Premier».
The regions path stage 2 draw was held on 30 November 2024 at 12:30 MSK live on TV-channel « Match Premier».

=Stage 1

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=Stage 2

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Semi-finals

The RPL path semi-final draw was held on 30 November 2024 at 12:30 MSK live on TV-channel « Match Premier».

RPL path

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Regions path

The draw for regions path semi-final, the host in the regions path final and the hosts in the RPL path final was held on 12 March 2025.

=Stage 1

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=Stage 2

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Path finals

RPL path

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Regions path

Final

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2024-25 Russian Cup
Russian Cup seasons
Cup
Russian Cup