Danish Cup

The Danish Cup (Danish: Landspokalturneringen; often referred to as Pokalen) is the official "knockout" cup competition in Danish football, run by the Danish Football Association. Since 2026 it is also known as Betano Pokalen for sponsorship reasons. The cup has been contested annually since 1955. The winner will qualify for the UEFA Europa League tournament the following year, where they (as of the 2009–10 season) will enter in the third qualifying round. The final traditionally takes place on Kristi Himmelfarts Dag (The Ascension) and it is always played in the Danish national stadium Parken. However in the 1991 and 1992 seasons the final had been rescheduled to Odense Stadion and Århus Stadion respectively due to the renovation of Parken. Furthermore, in 2011, because Ascension Thursday fell on 2 June and an international match date was already allotted for this date, the Danish Cup final was played two weeks earlier on 22 May, which coincided with the annual Copenhagen Marathon. Attention has been brought to the fact that the final on most occasions unpractically is played before the last rounds of the league, which can open up for speculation in the benefit of losing league games at the end of the season especially for the cup runner-up if the winner is heading for the league championship. Recently former AaB player David Nielsen claimed in his autobiography that after losing the cup final in 2004 to FC Copenhagen, he deliberately missed opportunities to score against them when AaB and FC Copenhagen met in the final league match because FCK would win the championship (and thereby the double) and land AaB in the UEFA Cup as losing cup finalists.