UEFA Champions League
| File:UEFA Champions League logo 2.svg | |
| Founded | 1955 (1992 in its current format) |
|---|---|
| Region | UEFA (Europe) |
| Number of teams | 32 (group stage) 76 or 77 (total) |
| Current champions |  Barcelona (4th title) |
| Most successful club(s) | Real Madrid (9 titles) |
| Television broadcasters | List of broadcasters |
| Website | Official website |
 2010–11 UEFA Champions League | |
The UEFA Champions League (usually referred to as simply the Champions League or historically as the European Cup) is an annual association football cup competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious football club competition in the world.[1][2] The final of the competition is the most watched annual sporting event worldwide, drawing just over 100 million television viewers.[3]
Prior to 1992, the tournament was officially called the European Champion Clubs' Cup but was usually referred to as simply the European Cup or European Champions' Cup. The competition was initially a straight knockout competition open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s the tournament began to be expanded, incorporating a round-robin group phase and more teams. Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams each for the competition. The UEFA Champions League should not be confused with the UEFA Europa League, formerly known as the UEFA Cup.
The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three knockout qualifying rounds and a play-off round. The 10 surviving teams join 22 seeded teams in the group stage, in which there are eight groups consisting of four teams each. The eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout phase, which ends with the final match in May. Since the tournament changed name and structure in 1992, no club has managed consecutive wins, with Milan being the last club to successfully defend their title, in 1990. The winner of the UEFA Champions League qualifies for the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup.
The title has been won by 21 different clubs, 12 of which have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holders are Real Madrid, who have won the competition nine times, including the first five seasons it was contested. Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A are marginally the most successful leagues, having amassed 12 wins, between two and three clubs respectively. The English league has produced 11 winners from four clubs. English teams were banned from the competition for five years following the events at Heysel in 1985.[4] Spanish club Internazionale are the current champions, having beaten Manchester United of England 3–1 in the 2011 final.
History
The tournament was inaugurated in 1955, at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and editor of L'Équipe Gabriel Hanot,[5] who conceived the idea after receiving reports from his journalists over the highly successful Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones of 1948.[6] As a reaction to a declaration by the British press on the part of Wolverhampton Wanderers being "Champions of the World" after a successful run of European friendlies in the 1950s, Hanot finally managed to convince UEFA to put into practice a continent-wide tournament. The tournament was conceived as a 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. Until 1992, entry was restricted to the teams that won their national league championships, plus the current European Cup holder. In the 1992–93 season, the format was changed to include a group stage and the tournament was renamed the UEFA Champions League. There have since been numerous changes to eligibility for the competition, the number of qualifying rounds and the group structure. In 1997–98, eligibility was expanded to include the runners-up from some countries according to UEFA's coefficient ranking list. The qualification system has been restructured so that national champions from lower ranked countries have to take part in one or more qualifying rounds before the group stages, while runners-up from higher ranked countries enter in later rounds. Up to four clubs from the top-ranked countries are currently given entry to the competition.
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, the winner automatically qualifies for the FIFA-organised Club World Cup with other winners of continental club championships.
Anthem
The UEFA Champions League anthem, officially titled simply as "Champions League", was written by Tony Britten, and is an adaptation of George Frideric Handel's "Zadok the Priest" from the Coronation Anthems.[7][8] UEFA commissioned Britten in 1992 to arrange an anthem, and the piece was performed by London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and sung by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.[7] The chorus contains the three official languages used by UEFA: English, German, and French. The anthem's chorus is played before each UEFA Champions League game, as well as at the beginning and end of television broadcasts of the matches. The complete anthem is about three minutes long, and has two short verses and the chorus. For the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final in Rome, tenor Andrea Bocelli sang backing lyrics to the Champions League anthem. The anthem has never been released commercially in its original version.
Format
Qualification
As of 2009, the UEFA Champions League commences with a round-robin group stage of 32 teams, which is preceded by two qualification 'streams' for teams that do not receive direct entry to the tournament proper. The two streams are divided between teams qualified by virtue of being league champions, and those qualified by virtue of finishing 2nd-4th in their national championship.
The number of teams that each association enters into the UEFA Champions League is based upon the UEFA coefficients of the member associations. These coefficients are generated by the results of clubs representing each association during the previous five Champions League and UEFA Europa League/UEFA Cup seasons. The higher an association's coefficient, the more teams represent the association in the Champions League, and the fewer qualification rounds the association's teams must compete in.
5 of the remaining ten qualifying places are granted to the winners of a four round qualifying tournament between the remaining 39 or 38 national champions, within which those champions from associations with higher coefficients receive byes to later rounds. The other 5 are granted to the winners of a two round qualifying tournament between the 15 clubs from the associations ranked 1-15, which have qualified based upon finishing 2nd-4th in their national league.
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.
In 2005-06, Liverpool and Artmedia Bratislava became the first teams to reach the Champions League group stage after playing in all three qualifying rounds. In 2008-09, both BATE and Anorthosis Famagusta achieved the same feat. Barcelona, Manchester United and Porto are the teams that have appeared most often in the group stage: fourteen times each. FC Porto have only won the tournament once since the establishment of the group stage (2004), Manchester United twice (1999 and 2008) and Barcelona four times (1992, 2006, 2009 and 2011).
Between 2003 and 2008, no differentiation was made between champions and non-champions in qualification. The sixteen top ranked teams spread across the biggest domestic leagues qualified directly for the tournament group stage. Prior to this, three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds whittled down the remaining teams, with different teams starting in different rounds.
Tournament
The tournament proper begins with a group stage of 32 teams, divided into eight groups. Seeding is used whilst making the draw for this stage, whilst teams from the same country may not be drawn into groups together. Each team meets the others in its group home and away in a round-robin format.
For this stage, the winning team from one group plays against the runners-up from another group, and teams from the same country may not be drawn against each other. From the quarter-finals onwards, the draw is entirely random, with country protection no longer in force. The tournament uses the away goals rule: if the aggregate score of the two games is tied, then the team who scored more goals at their opponent's stadium advances. The top two teams from each group progress to the round of 16, which commences the knock-out tournament. The third-placed team enters the UEFA Europa League.
The group stage is played through the autumn, whilst the knock-out stage starts after a winter break. The knock-out ties are played in a two-legged format, with the exception of the final. This is typically held in the final two weeks of May.
Referees
Ranking
The UEFA Refereeing Unit is broken down into five experience-based categories in which a referee is placed into Category 4 with the exception of referees from France, Germany, England, Italy, or Spain. Referees from these five countries are typically comfortable with top professional matches and are therefore directly placed into Category 3. After every match, a referee's performance is observed and evaluated. Twice per season his or her Category 123 may be revised. A referee cannot be promoted directly from a Category 3 to the Elite Category.[9]
Appointment
In cooperation with the UEFA Refereeing Unit, the UEFA Referee Committee is responsible for appointing referees to matches. Referees are appointed based on previous matches, marks, performances, and fitness levels. To discourage bias, the Champions League takes nationality into account. No referee may be of the same origins as any club in his or her respecting groups. Referee appointments, suggested by the UEFA Refereeing Unit, are sent to the UEFA Referee Committee to be discussed and/or revised. After a consensus is made, the name of the appointed referee remains confidential up to two days before the match for the purpose of minimizing public influence.[9]
Limitations
Since 1990, a UEFA international referee cannot exceed the age of 45 years. After turning 45, a referee must step down at the end of his/her season. The age limit was established to ensure an elite level of fitness. Today, UEFA Champions League referees are required to pass a fitness test to even be considered at the international level.[9]
Prize money
As of 2010–11, UEFA awards €2.1 million to each team in the play-offs round. For reaching the group stage, UEFA awards €3.9 million, plus €550,000 per group match played. A win in the group is awarded €800,000 and a draw is worth €400,000. In addition, UEFA pays teams reaching the first knockout round €3 million, each quarter finalist €3.3 million, €4.2 million for each semi-finalist, €5.6 million for the runners-up and €9 million for the winners.[10]
A large part of the distributed revenue from the UEFA Champions League is linked to the "market pool", the distribution of which is determined by the value of the television market in each country. For the 2008-09 season, both Manchester United and Bayern Munich, who reached the final and quarter-final respectively, earned more than Barcelona, who won the tournament.[11]
Sponsorship
Like the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA Champions League is sponsored by a group of multinational corporations, in contrast to the single main sponsor of the Barclays Premier League, the Ligue 1, the Liga BBVA or Serie A TIM. When the Champions League was created in 1992, it was decided that a maximum of eight companies should be allowed to sponsor the event, with each corporation being allocated four advertising boards around the perimeter of the pitch, as well as logo placement at pre- and post-match interviews and a certain number of tickets to each match. This, combined with a deal to ensure tournament sponsors were given priority on television advertisements during matches, ensured that each of the tournament's main sponsors was given maximum exposure.[12]
The advertising boards are a source of criticism, due to their larger size compared to those in other leagues such as the Premier League. Their larger size means that, at some grounds, such as Old Trafford, Anfield, Celtic Park and Stamford Bridge, the front rows of seating cannot be used as their views of the pitch are blocked by the extreme size of the boards; accordingly, some season ticket holders are not guaranteed tickets for games and have to sit in seats other than their usual ones for games. Additionally, some stadia use the flat area in front of the front rows of seating for wheelchairs and disabled seating, so the boards drastically reduce these grounds' disabled supporter capacity.
The tournament's current main sponsors are:
- Ford
- Heineken (excluding Norway, Spain, France, Switzerland and Russia, where alcohol sponsorship is restricted. In Norway the Heineken adboard is replaced by a chalk art picture adboard, In Spain, France, and Switzerland the Heineken adboard is replaced by a "open your world" adboard and in Russia the Heineken adboard is replaced by a "No To Racism" adboard)
- MasterCard
- Sharp Corporation
- Sony Europe[13]
- BRAVIA is the brand advertised.
- Sony Ericsson
- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe[14]
- PlayStation is the brand advertised.
- UniCredit[15]
Adidas is a secondary sponsor and supplies the official match ball, as they do for all other UEFA competitions. Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer is also a secondary sponsor as the official Champions League video game.
Individual clubs may wear jerseys with advertising, even if such sponsors conflict with those of the Champions League. However, only one sponsorship is permitted per jersey (plus that of the manufacturer), and if clubs play a match in a country where the relevant sponsorship category is restricted (such as the case of France, alcohol, and betting), then they must remove that logo from their jerseys.
Media coverage
The competition attracts an extensive television audience, not just in Europe, but throughout the world. The matches are broadcast in over 70 countries with commentaries in more than 40 languages [citation needed] each year. With an estimated audience of 109 million people, the 2009 Champions League final surpassed that year's Super Bowl (106 million viewers) for the first time as the most-watched annual single sport event in the world.[16]
Records and statistics
By club
See also
References
- ^ David Bolchover, Christopher Brady (2006) The 90-minute manager: lessons from the sharp end of management p.190. Pearson Education. Retrieved March 6, 2011
- ^ Champions League bigger than World Cup - Jose Mourinho BBC Sport Retrieved March 6, 2011
- ^ "Champions League final tops Super Bowl for TV market". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. 31 January 2010. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
- ^ "1985: English teams banned after Heysel". BBC Archive. 31 May 1985. Retrieved 8 August 2006.
- ^ Spiro, Matthew (12 May 2006). "Hats off to Hanot". UEFA.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2006. Retrieved 10 July 2006.
- ^ "Primeira Libertadores - História (Globo Esporte 09/02/2008)". Youtube.com. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
- ^ a b UEFA Champions League anthem UEFA.com. Retrieved March 6, 2011
- ^ Media, democracy and European culture p.129. Intellect Books, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2011
- ^ a b c UEFA Referee
- ^ "Clubs get share of Champions League revenue". uefa.com. UEFA. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
- ^ "Distribution of revenue to participating clubs" (PDF). uefadirect (87). Union of European Football Associations: 6–7. 2009. Retrieved 26 July 2009.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Thompson, Craig; Magnus, Ems (2003). "The Uefa Champions League Marketing" (PDF). Fiba Assist Magazine: 49–50. Retrieved 19 May 2008.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Sony Europe extends sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League
- ^ UEFA Media Services
- ^ "UniCredit starts a three year sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League". Unicreditgroup.eu. 20 September 2009. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
- ^ "Champions League final tops Super Bowl for TV market". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. 31 January 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
External links
- UEFA Official Site
- RSSSF European Cups Archive
- European Cup History
- All time statistics with link to all results
- 50 years of the European Cup UEFA October 2004
Template:UEFA Champions League
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See also: International women's club football | ||
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| Tournaments | |
| Finals | |
| Squads | |
| Qualification | |
| Statistics | |
