The

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

is a seasonal football competition established in 1955. Prior to the 1992–93 season, the tournament was named the European Cup. The UEFA Champions League is open to the league champions of all

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

(Union of European Football Associations) member associations (except

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarch ...

, which has no league competition), as well as to the clubs finishing from second to fourth position in the strongest leagues. Originally, only the champions of their respective national league and the defending champions of the competition were allowed to participate. However, this was changed in 1997 to allow the runners-up of the stronger leagues to compete as well, and again in 1999 when third and fourth-placed teams of the said leagues also became eligible. In the Champions League era, the defending champions of the competition did not automatically qualify until the rules were changed in 2005 to allow title holders

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

to enter the competition. Teams that have won the UEFA Champions League three consecutive times, or five times overall, receive a multiple-winner badge. Six teams have earned this privilege: Real Madrid,

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

, Bayern Munich,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Liverpool, and

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. Until 2009, clubs that had earned that badge were allowed to keep the European Champion Clubs' Cup and a new one was commissioned; since 2009, the winning team each year has received a full-size replica of the trophy, while the original is retained by UEFA. A total of 22 clubs have won the Champions League/European Cup. Real Madrid hold the record for the most victories, having won the competition fourteen times, including the inaugural edition. They have also won the competition the most consecutive times, with five straight titles from 1956 to 1960. Juventus have been runners-up the most times, losing seven finals. Atlético Madrid is the only team to reach three finals without having won the trophy while Reims and

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

have finished as runners-up twice without winning. Spain has provided the most champions, with nineteen wins from two clubs. England have produced fourteen winners from five clubs and Italy have produced twelve winners from three clubs. English teams were banned from the competition for five years following the

Heysel disaster The Heysel Stadium disaster ( it, Strage dell'Heysel ; german: link=no, Katastrophe von Heysel ; french: Drame du Heysel ; nl, Heizeldrama ) was a crowd disaster that occurred on 29 May 1985 when mostly Juventus fans escaping from a breach by L ...

in 1985. The current champions are Real Madrid, who beat Liverpool 1–0 in the 2022 final for a record-extending fourteenth title.

List of finals

* The "Season" column refers to the season the competition was held, and

wikilink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wit ...

s to the article about that season. * The wikilinks in the "Score" column point to the article about that season's final game.

Performances

By club

By nation

Teams from thirteen nations have been to a Champions League final, and teams from ten of those have won the competition. Since the 1995–96 season, other than Porto's win in 2003–04, the winners have come from one of only four nations – Spain (11), England (6), Germany (4) and Italy (4) – and other than Monaco in 2003–04 and Paris Saint-Germain in 2019–20, the runners-up have all come from the same four nations.

Notes

References