Champions League - the most prestigious football tournament for clubs, which is held under the auspices of UEFA. Winning it is the biggest achievement on the football fields in Europe for clubs.
Instruction manual
1
For a long time, holding football matches of international level for clubs did not interest anyone. National associations created internal leagues for their countries, in which clubs concentrated their forces. And with the teams of other countries they held friendly matches, often just to please their fans with new rivals.
2
The idea of creating a club championship for Europe was first voiced by Gabriel Ano, a journalist for the French sports newspaper. He was confused by the loud statements of the English press in 1954, which claimed that the Wolverhampton Wanderers team was the most powerful football club in the world. The British made this statement after two confident victories over the Honved and Spartak clubs, who were the champions of their countries.
3
Ano believed that in order to identify the strongest team it was necessary to hold two meetings, home and away, and to determine the winner by the sum of two matches. In 1955, in his newspaper L'Équipe, he published a possible format for such a tournament. His idea quickly became popular among football critics, but FIFA was then involved in conducting international tournaments, which such a tournament for clubs was not very interested in.
4
The document on the creation of a new international tournament "European Cup" was signed on April 2, 1955 in Paris. It was received by 16 delegates from various football clubs, where they took care of the entire organization of such a tournament. The emergence of a new football committee was not very happy at FIFA. Therefore, on June 21 of the same year, FIFA instructed the UEFA Executive Committee to take control of this tournament, while maintaining all the rules and regulations that existed before.
5
And on September 4, 1955, the opening of a new tournament took place, with the match Sporting Lisbon - Partizan Belgrade. According to the regulations, 16 teams took part in the tournament - the champions of their countries, divided into 8 pairs (in the first tournament the organizers chose the pairs themselves, in the subsequent tournament the draw was held) and played two matches (home and away) for the relegation. If by the sum of the meetings the score was a draw, a replay was conducted on the territory of another country.
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In this format, with minor modifications, the tournament was held until 1991, when the group tournament system was first applied. In 1992, the tournament officially changed its name to the UEFA Champions League and included the group stage in the format of the cup.
7
In the season 1997-98. the number of participants has been increased. Now, from some countries up to 4 teams could be announced in the tournament, depending on the country's rating in the odds table. Clubs of countries with low ratings can also take part in the tournament by playing qualifying matches. In this format, the tournament is held to this day, and at the end of each season, the coefficients of countries are recalculated depending on the success of their teams.
