Uefa League

The UEFA Cup is the second major club football competition in Europe, organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It is the second most important international competition for European football clubs, after the UEFA Champions League. Clubs qualify for the UEFA Cup based on their performance in national leagues and cup competitions.

It began in 1971 and replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. In 1999 the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was abolished and merged with the UEFA Cup. The UEFA is now considering changing the name of the competition to 'UEFA Europa League' from the 2009-2010 season.

Zenit St. Petersburg are the current holders of the UEFA Cup, having won the competition 2-0 against Rangers. The 2008 UEFA Cup Final took place at City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England, on 14 May 2008.

The UEFA Cup was first played in the season 1971-72, with English team Tottenham Hotspur F.C. being the first winner. The 'one club per city' rule, inherited from the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, was dropped in 1975. English club Everton F.C. had finished fourth in the English league and could thus qualify but were barred from entry because city rivals Liverpool F.C. had also qualified by coming second. Everton appealed, saying the rule was an unfair anachronism, and UEFA agreed to overturn it.

The competition was traditionally open to the runners-up of domestic leagues, but in 1999 the competition was merged with UEFA's third European competition, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. Since then, the winners of domestic cup competitions have also entered the UEFA Cup. Also, clubs eliminated in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League and the third placed teams at the end of the group phase could go on to compete in the UEFA Cup. Also admitted to the competition are three Fair Play representatives, eleven UEFA Intertoto Cup winners, and winners of some selected domestic league cup competitions.

The winners keep the trophy for only 1 year and after handing it back they can keep a replica which is four-fifths the size of the original trophy. The regulations also state that the original trophy is handed to any club that wins the UEFA Cup three times in a row or five times overall though this has yet to occur as of 2008. Four teams have achieved the great accomplishment of winning their domestic league, domestic cup and the UEFA Cup in the same season, those being IFK Göteborg in 1982, Galatasaray in 2000, F.C. Porto in 2003 and CSKA Moscow in 2005. Ajax and Galatasaray are the only two teams to have won the cup without suffering a single loss in their campaign.

On November 30, 2007 UEFA decided to introduce a new format for the UEFA Cup for the three-year cycle, starting in the season 2009-10. The biggest change is that there will be a group stage with 12 groups of 4 (in a double round robin) instead of 8 groups of 5. Apart from that, the qualification will change significantly.

Associations ranked 7-9 will send the Cup winner and 3 other teams to the UEFA Cup qualification, all other nations send a Cup winner and 2 other teams, except Liechtenstein, Andorra and San Marino, who will only send a Cup winner. Usually, the other teams will be the next highest ranked clubs in each domestic league after those participating in the Champions League, however France and England will most likely continue to use one spot for their League Cup winner. Additionally, 3 places in the first of four qualifying rounds are still reserved for Fair Play winners.

Generally, the higher an association is ranked in the UEFA coefficients, the later its clubs start in the qualification, however every team except the title holder has to play at least one qualification round.

Apart from the teams mentioned, an additional 15 losing teams from the Champions League qualification round 2 will enter in the last UEFA Cup qualification round, and the 10 losers of the Champions League qualification round 3 will directly enter the UEFA Cup group stage. The 12 winners and the 12 runners-up in the group stage will advance to the first knock out round, together with 8 3rd placed teams from the Champions League.

The Intertoto Cup will be abolished and folded into the UEFA Cup, much like the Cup Winners' Cup had been in the late 1990s.

From the 2009-10 season, the competition may be rebranded as the "Europa Cup" in a bid to increase the competition's profile.

While the UEFA cup is still in the shadow of the Champions League, it still has many top team involved. And as the group stages pass and knock-out rounds start, it attracts millions of people every year!

The UEFA Champions League, which was called the European Champion Clubs' Cup, is a seasonal club football competition organised by UEFA since 1992 (or overall in its older format since 1955) for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs' Cup (more commonly known as the European Cup), is the most prestigious club trophy in the sport. The UEFA Champions League is separate from the UEFA Cup.

The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in a group stage. Eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout rounds, which end with the final match in May. Previously only the champions of their respective national league could participate in the competition; however, this was changed in 1997 to allow the runners-up of the stronger leagues to compete as well.

The title has been held by a number of different clubs, where some have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holder is Real Madrid with their nine wins. AC Milan have won it seven times, Liverpool FC five times, Ajax and Bayern Munich four times, and Manchester United three times.

The current holders are Manchester United F.C. who beat Chelsea F.C. 6-5 on penalties, 1-1 after extra time, in Moscow on the 21st May 2008 (GMT).

The tournament was inaugurated in 1955, at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and editor of L'Équipe Gabriel Hanot, as a continental competition for winners of the European national football leagues, as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, abbreviated to European Cup.

The competition began as the 1955/56 using a two-leg knockout format where the teams would play two matches, one at home and one away, and the team with the highest overall score qualifying for the next round of the competition. Entry was restricted to the teams that won their national league championships, plus the current European Cup holder. This qualification system continued until 1992. In the 1992–93 season, the tournament was renamed UEFA Champions League and in 1997/98, eligibility was expanded to include not just domestic champions but also the best performing runners up according to UEFA's coefficient ranking list. In UEFA's coefficient system, a team finishing second in the Spanish La Liga would be more deserving of an automatic place in the Champions League than a team finishing first in, for example, Polish Ekstraklasa. As a result, the system was restructured to force "weaker" national champions to qualify for the group stages, while other, "stronger" national runners-up would automatically get places.

Between 1960 and 2004 the winner of the tournament qualified for the now defunct Intercontinental Cup against the winner of the Copa Libertadores of South America. Since then, with FIFA taking over, the winner automatically qualifies for the FIFA Club World Cup with other winners of continental club championships.

The UEFA Champions league is open to the league champions of all UEFA member associations (except Liechtenstein, which has no league competition), as well as to the clubs finishing from second to fourth position in the strongest leagues. Since January 2007 the two lowest-ranked league competitions (currently the Andorra and San Marino leagues) can also represent their domestic champions in the Champions League.

An association's rank also determines the stage at which the clubs enter the competition. For example, the three highest-ranked associations have two places in the group stage (for champions and runners-up) and two in the third qualifying round (for third and fourth-placed teams), whereas the lowest-ranked associations have only one place in the first qualifying round for their champions. Nine highest-ranked associations have at least one automatic place in the group stage. The situation with the European Cup holders has not been clearly defined. There was controversy when Liverpool won the competition in 2004-05 but finished outside the top four in the FA Premier League. The Football Association ruled that Everton (who finished fourth) should get the final English place in the 2005-06 European Cup. UEFA came to an agreement that both Merseyside rivals would be allowed to enter the competition with Liverpool starting from the first qualifying round and Everton starting from the third qualifying round. UEFA's current rule is that if the European Cup winners fail to finish in one of its national league's qualifying positions, it will take the place of the lowest placed team in its league. The superseded team will go to the UEFA Cup.

In 2005-06, Liverpool and Artmedia Bratislava of Slovakia became the first teams to reach the Champions League group phase after playing in all three qualifying rounds.

In addition to sporting criteria, any club must be licensed by its national association to participate in the Champions league. To obtain a license, club must meet certain stadium, infrastructure and finance requirements.

FC Barcelona, Manchester United, and FC Porto are the teams that have appeared most often in the group stages: thirteen each. FC Porto and Barcelona have only won the tournament once each since the establishment of the Group stages (2004 and 2006 respectively), whilst Manchester United have won it twice 1999 and 2008.