The UEFA Plaque
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The UEFA Plaque was a honorific award given by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to those clubs that had won, at least once, the title in each of the three major international competitions organised by that confederation, namely the European Champions Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. It was officially established in late 1987 and its first award was given in the second half of the following year, with Italian
Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
being the club to be honoured. A second award was initially scheduled for the second half of 1992 in favour of Dutch side Ajax, but it was not conferred for unclarified reasons by the confederation after Spanish team Barcelona —who did not comply with the requirement imposed by UEFA— at the same time unsuccessfully applied to European football's governing body for such recognition, being subsequently discontinued.


Background

Since 1971 to 1999, three international competitions organised by UEFA were disputed in Europe each season, which would be regulated by a single committee since 1972 and had defined dates in the international fixture calendar, so these were named since then by that governing body as its major tournaments in terms of prestige and by the mass media as "the three European cups" due the general level of all these was even. These competitions, named European Champions' Cup, Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup given additionally points for the confederation coefficient since its introduction in 1979, being the first cited regarded as the most prestigious and the latter as the hardest to win in view of its unpredictability, its contestants' level and having different winning teams each season. At the beginning of the 1984–85 season in European football, two clubs in the continent were in the running to become the first to complete this trio of competitions, having won at least two trophies out of three: Hamburg and
Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
, which competed in the UEFA Cup and in the European Champions' Cup, respectively, and required to win the trophy in those competitions to achieve this set; being the Italian team the only to do it at the end of that season. In December 1987, the UEFA competitions' Organising Committee proposed, at Zürich, to the confederation's executive committee to be instituted an official award for those clubs that would have won at least once all three seasonal pan-European tournaments —a success called ''
a posteriori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...
'' by the confederation as "the European Treble"— and, after being ratified, it was announced to be given for the first time during the first official UEFA meeting of the following season which would be held five months latter. By the time of the announcement, only two clubs in Europe would complete all sweep of seasonal international trophies, equalling the Juventus' record, if they had won the title in the competition which participated:
Anderlecht Anderlecht (, ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the south-western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Forest, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, and Saint-Gilles, as well as the ...
in European Champions' Cup and Milan AC in UEFA Cup during the 1987–88 season, but both were eliminated in the quarter-finals and in the second round, respectively. In a similar situation were both Ajax and
Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...
, who unsuccessfully participated in the
1988–89 UEFA Cup The 1988–89 UEFA Cup was won by Napoli over Stuttgart. It was the fourth season that English clubs were banned from European competitions. The English league clubs who otherwise would have qualified were Manchester United and Luton Town. Rom ...
. Italian mass media dubbed that recognition since it was conferred in July 1988, "Targa UEFA" ( en, UEFA Plaque) by
metonymy Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
and
synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek . Examples in common Engl ...
and with this name it was also known, by literal translation, outside the country.


Description

The award consists of a rectangular silver plaque on which are superimposed silhouettes of three trophies that represent the tournaments mentioned, above a golden laurel wreath and the European football government body badge, also in gold. Also, the plaque have the following inscription in French, then the confederation's leading administrative language, which translated to English:


Recipients

On 12 July 1988, at the beginning of the 1988–89 European competitions seeding held in Geneva (Switzerland), then UEFA president Jacques Georges presented the prize to then
Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
president
Giampiero Boniperti Giampiero Boniperti (; 4 July 1928 – 18 June 2021) was an Italian footballer who played his entire 15-season career at Juventus between 1946 and 1961, winning five Serie A titles and two Coppa Italia titles. He also played for the Italy nati ...
. In July 1992, after winning the European Champions' Cup, then FC Barcelona president Josep Lluís Núñez requested of UEFA a similar recognition, stating that his club had equalled Juventus' record, having won formerly the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. European football's governing body, now led by Lennart Johansson, who replaced Georges in the charge, rejected it because the Spanish club had never won the UEFA Cup proper, and UEFA does not recognize its predecessor, the
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, sometimes referred to as the European Fairs Cup, Fairs Cities' Cup, or simply as the Fairs Cup, was a European Association football, football competition played between 1955 and 1971. It is often considered the predecess ...
, previously won by the ''Blaugrana'', as an official competition. Eight months latter, Johansson proposed, unsuccessfully, to merge all three seasonal competitions in a unique pan-European championship which the better teams in the continent would be involved. Since UEFA awarded Juventus with the UEFA Plaque, four other clubs have won the three seasonal European competitions: Ajax (1992, to whom the recognition was initially scheduled after their triumph in
1991–92 UEFA Cup The 1991–92 UEFA Cup was the 21st season of Europe's then-tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA. It was won by Dutch club Ajax on away goals over Torino of Italy. The victory made Ajax only the second team – after Torino's city ...
, notwithstanding the confederation latter decided not to award them for unknown reasons), Bayern Munich (1996), Chelsea (2013), and
Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
(2017).


See also

* UEFA club competition records and statistics


Notes


References


Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Uefa Plaque * Plaque Plaque Awards established in 1987 1987 establishments in Switzerland 1987–88 in European football 1988–89 in European football 1992–93 in European football