The UEFA Champions League (sometimes shortened to C1), formerly known as the European Champions Cup (from its inception in 1955 until 1992), is a football competition organized by the Union of European football associations (UEFA), happening every year and bringing together the most famous clubs in Europe. It is the most prestigious inter-club football competition in Europe in front of the Europa League.

The winner of the competition is automatically qualified for the next edition. He also participated in the UEFA Super Cup as well as the FIFA World Cup of clubs.

Real Madrid is the most successful club in the history of the competition with thirteen victories2.

History – Creation of the competition

The idea of an interclub European Cup was born in the minds of Parisian journalists; the shocks Wolverhampton Wanderers – Honvéd Budapest and Wolverhampton Wanderers – Spartak Moscow of December 1954 succeeded in convincing Them3. Indeed, after the Wolves ‘victories, The Daily Mail proclaimed the club “”World Club champion.”” Gabriel Hanot counters in the team with a call for the foundation of a European Cup: a series of articles from the Parisian Sports Daily explains weeks during the advantages of such an event, and the first reactions are rather positive4. On 16 December 1954, Jacques de Ryswick signed an article presenting the “” interclub European Cup project.”” Given the positive responses from all over Europe, on 25 January 1955, the team drafted a draft regulation signed by Jacques Ferran. On 3 February 1955, The Daily newspaper published the list of clubs invited to take part in the first edition of the event, and during February, the clubs confirmed their participation3. On 26 February 1955, FIFA contacted the team to verify that its statutes did not prevent the organization of such a competition: “”the organization of such a tournament is not subject to prior authorization by FIFA, whose laws (Article 38) cover only matches between national representative teams “”5. UEFA has just emerged from Limbo, and its statutes are almost blank. On 1 March, the UEFA Executive Committee declared itself unable to ensure the proper organization of such an event and left each federation free to choose whether or not to take part in the game. We then roll up the sleeves to the team, taking care to go and canvass the federations. The FFF was finally convinced despite the delicate issue of overloading the calendar. Each alliance must nominate its representative, and most of them do not appoint the reigning champion but make a choice based on the popularity of the club, provided that the club has already won the national championship at least once.6,7 On April 2 and 3, the team gathered the leaders of the participating clubs in Paris to define the dates of the competition and have them approve the regulation7.

The situation changed on 8 May, when everything was completed with 16 teams leaving (the arbitrary designation of the round of 16 had already taken place). FIFA realizes the danger of going the handling of competitions to outside actors and finally urges UEFA to take charge of the organization of the event3. FIFA even forbids the use of the word “”Europe”” in the name of the event wishing to reserve this term for competitions between national teams3. UEFA and FIFA are doing everything they can to get the British to participate, but the FA remains adamant: no! The Chelsea FC was still in it9, but its plan was made official on 26 July 1955.

The European Champions Cup (1955-1991)

The European Champions Cup (CCC) has been a massive success since its first edition (but it is a fatal blow to the prestigious friendly matches that once graced the midfielders of week10). It is played in round-trip matches except for the final.

After two editions of this competition, the Latin Cup, which saw the champions of Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal compete against each other, became much less critical and was finally dissolved. In 1960, UEFA and CONMEBOL created the Intercontinental Cup, which saw the winner of the European Champions Cup face-off against the winner of the Copa Liberators and where the winner was considered the “” best club in the world.””

With the establishment of the European Cup Winners Cup in 1960 and the UEFA Cup in 1971, it was sometimes shortened to C1, about the ranking of the three European competitions that took place at that time.