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What is the Champions League and How Did it Begin?

19 Mar, 2025
What is the Champions League and How Did it Begin?

For ambitious clubs across Europe with hopes of becoming major contenders on the world stage, the UEFA Champions League is the ultimate test. Coaches can display their team's potential by finishing towards the top end of a domestic league or even mounting a title challenge, but going deep in Europe's premier club knockout competition is another matter entirely.

It takes a special mixture of quality, flair, steel and determination to go all the way, and since the creation of the tournament only a select group of clubs have managed to get their hands on the trophy.

In this article we'll be explaining what the Champions League is and running you through the history of this prestigious football competition. We'll start by tracing the origins of the Champions League and guiding you through the broader evolution of European club competitions over the years, before detailing the recent changes that have been made to the UEFA Champions League (UCL) format.

What is the Champions League?

The Champions League is European football's highest-level club competition. Divided into a group or league phase followed by a head-to-head knockout round, this annual tournament pits Europe's best teams against each other, producing some thrilling encounters between some of the world's most talented footballers. For this reason, many people view the UCL as the highest-quality form of professional football played anywhere in the world. 

The teams competing in this competition are decided by domestic performance; each season, only a small handful of clubs from each of the continent's Big Five domestic leagues (and even fewer from other less prestigious European leagues) qualify for the competition.

Typically, the top four clubs from the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, and French Ligue 1 will enter the group stage of the tournament. 

Historically, the richest and most successful of those clubs — the likes of Real Madrid, Milan, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich — have tended to dominate the tournament. However, there have been some huge upsets over the years, from Jose Mourinho's Porto side winning the competition in 2004 to unfancied Ligue 1 outfit Marseille beating Milan in the 1993 final (they remain the only French club to have won the Champions League).

In fact, ever since the European Cup was first created, dramatic, shocking results have become part and parcel within this competition.

How Did The Champions League Begin?

The European Cup was first created in 1955, after the French sports journalist Gabriel Hanot (a pioneering editor of L'Equipe who also founded the Ballon d'Or) saw how successful the South American Championship of Champions had become, and sought to replicate this format in Europe.

After lobbying Europe's governing body UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) for some time — with the help of clubs who were equally enthused about the prospect of an elite-level European club competition — he convinced them to get behind a new European Champion Clubs' Cup.

16 clubs competed in the first-ever edition of this tournament, including Milan, PSV Eindhoven, and Sporting CP. But it was Real Madrid who won the inaugural tournament; in fact, the Spanish giants completely dominated the European Cup in its early days, winning the first five trophies thanks to the attacking power of star players like Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano.

These early renditions of the European Cup were knockout tournaments from the start, with only the champions of each affiliated European league invited to join the competition.

The first British club to win the European Cup was Celtic in 1966/67, and Manchester United became the first English side to get their hands on the trophy the following year. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, English sides continued to enjoy success in Europe's most prestigious club competition, with Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa all winning European Cups.

However, after the 1985 Heysel disaster English clubs were banned from Europe for five years, preventing that dominance from continuing. Soon after English teams were ushered back into the competition, the entire format of the European Cup changed. 

The Original Champions League Format Explained

In 1991, the UEFA Champions League format as we know it was created, as organisers decided to add a group stage at the beginning of the competition which would then progress to a knockout phase to decide the tournament victors.

For the first edition of this format, the simple name 'the European Cup' was retained; however, for the 1992/93 season, the same year that the English top tier was rebranded as the Premier League, Europe's premier club competition was also renamed, with UEFA landing on the 'Champions League' as the new title.

The 1992/93 Champions League proper was contested by 32 teams, with a total of 36 sides competing if qualifying rounds are included. These 36 national champions were seeded based on a UEFA coefficient, with the eight lowest-ranked champions playing in the preliminary round while the 28 best went straight through to the group stages.

Originally, the clubs were split into two large groups, with the two group winners then meeting in the final. In 1992/93, Marseille ultimately beat Milan in the final, seizing the status of European champions from the previous year's winners, Barcelona, and while the French club was stripped of that season's domestic league title due to domestic match-fixing and financial irregularities, they retained their European title.

In the 1993/94 season a semi-final stage was added after the group round, and the following season the Champions League format as most modern fans know it was introduced: the 32 competing teams were divided into groups, with the winners and runners-up in each group going through to knockout stage. 

The precise division of teams has changed over the years; between 1994 and 1997, there were only four groups, meaning that the knockout phase went straight to quarter-finals. In 1997, teams were split into six groups with up to two clubs from each country allowed in the tournament for the first time, and between 1999 and 2003 this was expanded to as many as four clubs from each country.

The 16-club knockout phase (Last 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, final) that many modern UCL lovers are familiar with was introduced in 2003 and became extremely popular over the years. However, the system was recently changed in a controversial move from UEFA that has had serious ramifications for the landscape of European club knockout football.

The New Champions League Format Explained

The 2024/25 season saw the introduction of a brand new Champions League format, with the competition expanded to include a total of 36 clubs. We're now a far cry from the early days of the competition when only the champions of each domestic European league would feature; now, some countries will send as many as five teams to the first stage of the Champions League. 

While previously the first round of the tournament was structured as a group stage, from the 2024/25 campaign onwards a new league phase has been brought in to replace it.

Instead of a round-robin group system where every club in a group of four plays each other home and away, the new version of the UCL spreads the teams into a 36-team League Phase with each club playing a minimum of eight league games against randomly selected opponents (four home games, four away games).

The aim is for clubs to accrue enough points to finish in the top eight of the league, which guarantees them qualification for the Last 16 of the tournament. Clubs that finish from 25th to 36th in the league table will be automatically eliminated, but clubs that finish from 9th to 24th pass into a newly-created play-off round.

This can lead to some big clubs being dumped out of the competition, with Manchester City's hugely disappointing form this season leading to them finishing 22nd in the league phase and thereby they faced a difficult tie against seeded Real Madrid in the play-off round (they were eliminated).

The new structure of the UEFA Champions League has faced plenty of criticism since its conception. Some people have levelled the criticism that organisers are conceding ground to the advocates of the European Super League, a failed bid from some of the continent's richest clubs to sure up consistent broadcasting and sponsorship revenue by guaranteeing regular European football.

The idea is that by introducing a play-off round for teams that miss out on automatic qualification for the knockout phase of the UCL, the new format is designed to protect big clubs who end up underperforming.

Others have criticised the new format for the simple reason that it increases the amount of games being played by already under-strain players across Europe. Increased fixture congestion has led to growing concerns about player welfare in recent years, spotlighted by high-profile injuries to top players like Manchester City's star midfielder Rodri.

The introduction of at least two extra Champions League games (followed by an additional two fixtures for clubs who enter the play-off round) has only worsened these fears. By adding yet more fixtures to the calendar, the new format has also increased costs for fans looking to travel to support their team across the continent.

However, many people argue that despite these worries, the Champions League restructure has broadly been a success. The 2024/25 league phase saw clubs without huge Champions League pedigree like Aston Villa and Lille qualify automatically, while much richer and more successful outfits like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Milan and PSG missed out on the top eight and only managed to reach the play-off round.

Admittedly, all four of those European giants ultimately progressed to the Last 16 after play-off wins, but regardless there's no denying that the league phase created some dramatic moments, as well as some genuine upsets. Europe's premier knockout competition for elite clubs has continually evolved and will no doubt change in other ways in the future; but for now, the current setup is here to stay, and it certainly has its benefits.

Want to find out what's going on behind the scenes at the club who finished top of the inaugural UCL league phase? Check out our guide to who owns Liverpool.