Yano is the founder of the European Footballer of the Year award campaign. He also writes for the French newspaper L 'Equipe and the French football magazine. He has a keen feeling that there may be a brand-new competition that will bring together the top clubs in Europe. He suggested that famous clubs all over the world should create a new tournament by league system. The sponsors of the European Club Cup actively contacted FIFA and UEFA, but the results were disappointing. Both organizations are not very interested in competitions in which non-national teams participate. However, Yano's plan was warmly welcomed by Real Madrid, Anderlecht, rapid vienna and Hungarian Football Association.
Team newspaper entrusted Zaoyakde Risvik, a director of its editorial department, to organize a meeting attended by representatives of major European clubs at that time to determine the competition form between European clubs. Although UEFA reiterated at the Vienna Executive Committee meeting that it would not cooperate with any non-national teams, it still could not prevent the associations from sending representatives to Paris. At this historic meeting, the clubs reached an agreement on the competition system: the competition was attended by league champions from all countries; The home and away elimination system is adopted. If the points and goal difference of the two teams are the same, a play-off will be held in the third court. The final of the Champions League must be held at the stadium determined in advance by UEFA; When playing in our team's stadium, the ticket income, advertising fee and TV broadcast fee will be handled by the host. At this meeting, an executive committee was set up (Santiago Bernabeu, President of Real Madrid, is the first vice-chairman of the committee), which is responsible for drafting the main points of the European Club Cup and informing FIFA for understanding.
The idea of UEFA is to organize another cup to replace the European Club Cup proposed by L 'Equipe and most European clubs. The participants in this cup are not clubs, but cities, in order to close the friendly ties and sports exchanges between European cities. However, the development of the situation has made FIFA change its view on the European Club Cup. They saw that the game was really like that, and the teams participating in the competition were also of high level. On the other hand, after the first TV broadcast of the World Cup held in Switzerland from 65438 to 0954 and its success, European TV organizations are more likely to support the Champions League of European clubs, which means expanding their influence and making money.
UEFA began to reconsider its attitude towards this European Club Cup. They proposed to the cup organizers that the power to organize the competition should be given to UEFA, and the participation of club teams must be approved by the national association. After the proposed conditions were accepted, the UEFA Executive Committee held a meeting in Paris on May 2 1, 65438, 0955, and decided that UEFA would organize the tournament itself and named it the European Football Club Champions Cup instead of the original "European Cup". 19911992 Before the season, the competition system of the Champions League was a pure knockout. This season's group stage is set in the quarter-finals. 1992/ 1993 season, the Champions League was officially renamed as the "European Champions Cup", and the competition also developed into Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But people are used to calling it the European Champions Cup. In the following years, the competition system of the Champions League changed frequently, and the group round robin system was gradually applied to the competitions before the semi-finals. Teams are no longer limited to national league champions and champions league champions last season, but runners-up of some football powers can also participate. All these changes are to increase the number of games and make the participating teams get more benefits.
1998, in order to prevent major clubs from establishing European super leagues, UEFA decided to carry out the biggest reform in the history of the three major European cups from the 1999/2000 season-cancel the European Cup Winners' Cup. According to the ranking of European club competition results, countries can send 1-4 teams to participate in the Champions League. Another round of group matches was added. In the first stage, 32 teams were divided into 8 groups with 4 teams in each group, and each team played 6 games. The top two of the eight groups entered the second stage of the group stage and the third entered the third round of the UEFA Cup. In the second stage of the group stage, the quarter-finals advanced to the knockout stage.
In the 2003/2004 season, the second stage of the European Champions League was cancelled, that is, after the top 16 was produced, the knockout stage was directly started until the champion was decided.
2012165438+1October 28th, UEFA President Platini admitted that UEFA will reform European competitions in the 20 14 season, and UEFA will consider abolishing UEFA in the 20 15 season, but the number of teams participating in the Champions League will be reduced from the current one. Uefa is expected to make a decision on 20 14.
20 13 On May 24th, UEFA officially confirmed that from 20 15, the champions of the European League will qualify for the Champions League next season. The first champion who wants to participate in the Champions League through this rule is the Europa League champion in the 20 14/20 15 season. After this reform, the team will directly advance to the Europa League group stage.