The Champions League is the most prestigious football tournament for clubs and is held under the auspices of UEFA. Winning it is the biggest achievement on a football pitch in Europe for clubs.
Instructions
Step 1
For a long time, no one was interested in holding international football matches for clubs. National associations created internal leagues for their countries, in which the clubs concentrated their forces. And they played friendly matches with teams from other countries, more often just to please their fans with new rivals.
Step 2
The idea of creating a club championship for Europe was first voiced by Gabriel Ano, a journalist for a French sports newspaper. He was embarrassed by high-profile statements in the English press in 1954, which claimed that Wolverhampton Wanderers were the strongest football club in the world. The British made this statement after two confident victories over the clubs "Honved" and "Spartak", which were the champions of their countries.
Step 3
Ano believed that in order to identify the strongest team, it was required to hold two meetings, home and away, and to determine the winner based on 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 the organization of international tournaments was then handled by FIFA, which was not very interested in such a tournament for clubs.
Step 4
The document on the creation of a new international tournament "European Champions Cup" was signed on April 2, 1955 in Paris. It was received by 16 delegates from different football clubs, where they took over the entire organization of such a tournament. The appearance of the new football committee was not very happy in 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 were before.
Step 5
And already on September 4, 1955, the opening of a new tournament took place, 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 ones there was a draw) and played two matches (home and away) for elimination. If by the amount of meetings the score was a draw, a replay was carried out on the territory of another country.
Step 6
In this format, with minor changes, the tournament was held until 1991, when the group stage system was first applied. In 1992, the tournament officially changes its name to the "UEFA Champions League" and includes the group stage in the format of the cup.
Step 7
In the 1997-98 season. the number of participants has been increased. Now from some countries up to 4 teams could be entered in the tournament, depending on the country's rating in the coefficient table. Clubs from 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 the countries are recalculated, depending on the success of their teams.
