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Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao want Copa del Rey final at Real Madrid's Bernabeu

Copa del Rey contenders Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao have both indicated that they would be open to playing the final at Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.

Barcelona reached the final following a 6-2 aggregate victory over Villarreal on Wednesday evening, while Bilbao eased past Espanyol 3-1 on aggregate.

As Spain does not boast a national stadium as such, the debate has started up about where the May 30 final will be held, although initial indications suggest that it will be the Bernabeu.

The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) will make their final decision next week after meeting with representatives from Barca and Bilbao -- who will contest their eighth domestic cup final -- with five possible venues to choose from: the Bernabeu, Camp Nou, the new San Mames, Mestalla and La Cartuja.

All of the potential venues have a capacity in excess of 50,000 -- the only prerequisite set by the RFEF. Concerts by AC/DC rule out two other options, with the band due to play in Montjuic on May 29 and at the Calderon two days later.

As it stands, the RFEF has only received two formal requests to hold the final: one from Valencia who have offered the use of Mestalla and another from Bilbao's local council, who have proposed staging the event at the new San Mames.

However, the second option is practically discarded because the final has to take place on neutral ground and also because the stadium is owned by the consortium San Mames Barria partnership, which includes the local council, the Basque regional government, Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa bank and Athletic.

There been no word from Bilbao about playing the final on home ground in San Mames and nor is there likely to be -- the club is currently immersed in an electoral campaign and without a president; that situation is unlikely to change until, at the very earliest, March 12.

The Bernabeu is the clear favourite to hold the final despite Real not having submitted a request to do so to the RFEF. In 2012, Madrid turned down an offer to stage the final between the same two clubs, arguing that it would interfere with construction work that was due to take place on their stadium. This time, the Federation hopes they will accept.

Both Barca and Athletic have stated that they are open to the idea of hosting the final at the Bernabeu, as they did for the 1984 final.

Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu said: "We'll see what the Federation have to say but we are always in favour of the option which offers the largest capacity; and we don't like the idea of the final being at Camp Nou because no one likes to play these kind of games at their own stadium -- or even in their own city. One of the attractions of the cup final is that fans have to travel to other cities, as long as it is not too far for them".

Athletic are also open to staging the final in the capital, with Bilbao coach Ernesto Valverde telling reporters in his postmatch news conference that the Bernabeu is appealing while the Mestalla may not be an big enough to accommodate both sets of fans.

Barca coach Luis Enrique said of the venue for the final: "I haven't heard any news about that. I don't really care where it's played; all I know is that we'll be there. For Barca, what counts is winning silverware."

Of the Blaugrana beating Villarreal to confirm their passage to the final, the coach said: "We hadn't bargained on scoring in practically the first move of the match. It couldn't really have worked out much better than it did but we hadn't planned it that way.

"We didn't want an end-to-end game, we wanted to control play. Villarreal had two or three chances in the opening half and in the second half, we controlled the game a lot better. Our objective was to win the game but control the ball because we knew that they would cause us problems."

Barca return to the Primera Division action on Sunday when they host Rayo Vallecano, but the Catalan outfit will be without Spanish midfielder Sergio Busquets, who sustained a right ankle problem against Villarreal.

Busquets will undergo further tests on Thursday to confirm the extent of his injury, with Luis Enrique adding: "Busquets' injury is the only bad news. We know he'll be out a few days; we'll see how many, though."

Information from the Press Association was used in this report.

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