European Cup and UEFA Champions League history

The history of the European Cup and Champions League spans over fifty years of competition, finding winners and runners-up from all parts of the continent.

Club competitions between teams from different European countries trace their origins back as far as 1897, when the Challenge Cup was founded as a competition between clubs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that under normal circumstances would not meet in competition. This competition ran until 1911, with its last winners, Wiener Sportclub, retaining the trophy. The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was played for in 1909 and 1911 in Turin in Italy involving clubs from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and England.

The Challenge Cup is considered to be the forerunner of the first true pan-European club competition, the Mitropa Cup, which came about following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. At that time, the various nations of central Europe were introducing professional leagues. The introduction of an international club tournament was intended to assist the new professional clubs financially. The Mitropa Cup was first played for in 1927.

An early attempt to create a cup for national champion clubs of Europe was made by Swiss club Servette in 1930. The tournament called "Coupe des Nations" was a great success and the champions of the ten major European football nations of the time were invited. The cup was won by Hungarian club Újpest. Despite the great success, the tournament was never organised again, due to financial issues.

Following World War II, the reduced standing of the Mitropa Cup led to the foundation of a new competition, the Latin Cup, for teams from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This competition was played as a mini-tournament at the end of each season by the league champions from each country.

The Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones, or "South American Championship of Champions", kicked off in 1948 after years of deliberation and organisation and set into motion the antecedent of the Copa Libertadores. French journalist Jacques Ferran was in Santiago, Chile, covering the Championship for the newspaper L'Equipe. Vasco da Gama would go on to win the tournament. Back in France and fascinated with the idea of a continental club champions league, Ferran took the idea to his newspaper firm and Gabriel Hanot, the editor of L'Equipe, immediately begin forming proposals to present to UEFA (who at the time practiced only European national team championships). The UEFA document on the history of the European Cup confirms that Jacques Ferran and Gabriel Hanot, journalists for the French sports newspaper L'Equipe, were the founding fathers of the European Cup. In an interview to Brazilian sports TV programme Globo Esporte, broadcast on May 10th 2015, Jacques Ferran said that the South American Championship of Champions was the inspiration for the European Cup: "how could Europe, which wanted to be ahead of the rest of the world, not be able to accomplish a competition of the same kind of the South American one? We needed to follow that example", said Ferran to the Globo Esporte journalists.

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