Origins In December 1900, Alfonso Macaya, the then honorary president of
Hispania AC, began to develop the idea of a football championship contested in a league format between the different clubs that had been created in Spain, with registration being open to all national clubs throughout the country. In the end, however, only six Catalan teams participated, of which only one was a non-Barcelona team, the Tarragona Club, given the resignations of those from
Madrid and
Mallorca.
Copa Macaya III By the end of 1902, Hispania was already in decline, but it still has the strength and courage to organize the third edition of its championship. Alfonso Macaya distances himself from the organization of the tournament, which falls to Shields. Among the contenders remain the three most important, the organizer Hispania AC, FC Barcelona and Espanyol. The table is completed with two smaller clubs, SC Universitari, which already competed in the previous edition, and
FC Internacional.
Madrid FC requests to participate In 1903,
Madrid FC requested the organizers to participate in the Copa Barcelona, but the request was made too late to be accepted as the tournament was about to begin, making it impossible for them to join. As an alternative, Madrid FC was offered to play a match against the winner at the end of the competition to compete for a prize. Another of the reasons for the trip of the whites to Barcelona was to further strengthen the ties of friendship between them and the
Spanish Gymnastic Federation, as well as the Catalan clubs, especially with Español and FC Barcelona, meaning that
the rivalry between them had not yet arisen.
The championship for the ownership of the Cup With the decline of the Hispania AC at the end of 1903, it was evident that the history of the Copa Macaya was coming to an end, thus sparking the debate of who was entitled to take the Cup as its own, since a different team won in each edition (Hispania AC, FC Barcelona and Español). To resolve the situation, a championship between the previous three champions, Hispania AC, FC Barcelona and Club Español, was scheduled for November 1903, facing-off for the right to keep the trophy. However, when November came, Hispania had already disappeared, and since Club Español had won all the games of that season against Barcelona, the trophy was awarded to Club Español. From 1903 to 04 onwards, the Catalan championship began to be organized by the
Catalan Football Federation and it became known as the
Campionat de Catalunya. ==Results==