Danish Cup

Danish Cup

Founded	1954; 70 years ago (1954)
Region	Denmark
Number of teams	108
Qualifier for	UEFA Europa League
Current champions	Silkeborg IF (2nd title)
Most successful club(s)	F.C. Copenhagen AGF (9 titles)
Television broadcasters	DR TV3 Sport
Website	pokalturnering.dk
2024–25 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. 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.

The clubs with the most finals appearances is FCK and AaB with 13 finals each, having won 9 and 3 respectively.

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.