The UEFA Europa League (UEL), known simply as the Europa League, is an annual club football competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European clubs. It is the second-tier competition of European club football, ranking below the UEFA Champions League and above the UEFA Conference League.
Introduced in 1971 as the UEFA Cup, it replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. A group stage was added ahead of the knockout phase in the 2004–05 season. The competition took its current name in 2009, following a format change that included a merger with the UEFA Intertoto Cup, expanding the group stage and altering qualification. In 2024–25, the group stage was replaced by a 36-team league phase.
Winners of the UEFA Europa League qualify for the following season's UEFA Super Cup and UEFA Champions League. They have also occasionally played matches against the winners of the CONMEBOL Copa Sudamericana in the UEFA–CONMEBOL Club Challenge, most recently in 2023.
The competition has been won by 31 clubs and 14 of them have won it more than once. Clubs from Spain have the most wins, with 14, followed by England with 11, Italy with 10 and Germany with 7. The most successful club in the competition is Sevilla, with seven titles. Aston Villa are the current holders, having beaten SC Freiburg 3–0 in the 2026 final.
History
+ WinnersUEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League Season WinnersUEFA Cup 1971–72 Tottenham Hotspur 1972–73 Liverpool 1973–74 Feyenoord 1974–75 Borussia Mönchengladbach 1975–76 Liverpool 1976–77 Juventus 1977–78 PSV Eindhoven 1978–79 Borussia Mönchengladbach 1979–80 Eintracht Frankfurt 1980–81 Ipswich Town 1981–82 IFK Göteborg 1982–83 Anderlecht 1983–84 Tottenham Hotspur 1984–85 Real Madrid 1985–86 Real Madrid 1986–87 IFK Göteborg 1987–88 Bayer Leverkusen 1988–89 Napoli 1989–90 Juventus 1990–91 Inter Milan 1991–92 Ajax 1992–93 Juventus 1993–94 Inter Milan 1994–95 Parma 1995–96 Bayern Munich 1996–97 Schalke 04 1997–98 Inter Milan 1998–99 Parma 1999–2000 Galatasaray 2000–01 Liverpool 2001–02 Feyenoord 2002–03 Porto 2003–04 Valencia 2004–05 CSKA Moscow 2005–06 Sevilla 2006–07 Sevilla 2007–08 Zenit Saint Petersburg 2008–09 Shakhtar DonetskUEFA Europa League 2009–10 Atlético Madrid 2010–11 Porto 2011–12 Atlético Madrid 2012–13 Chelsea 2013–14 Sevilla 2014–15 Sevilla 2015–16 Sevilla 2016–17 Manchester United 2017–18 Atlético Madrid 2018–19 Chelsea 2019–20 Sevilla 2020–21 Villarreal 2021–22 Eintracht Frankfurt 2022–23 Sevilla 2023–24 Atalanta 2024–25 Tottenham Hotspur 2025–26 Aston Villa 2026–27 The UEFA Cup was preceded by the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. The competition grew from 11 teams during the first edition (1955–58) to 64 teams by the last edition which was played in 1970–71. It was replaced by the UEFA Cup, a new seasonal confederation competition with different regulations, format and disciplinary committee. In 2009, UEFA observed that while the Fairs Cup was "very successful ... the time came when the UEFA Executive Committee thought that such a major competition should be governed and organised by UEFA itself, which could ensure that standard rules were followed and could deal with refereeing and disciplinary matters". Since that time, the UEFA Cup "steadily became more prestigious".
The UEFA Cup was first played in the 1971–72 season, ending with an all-English final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur, with Spurs lifting the cup. In 1973 another English club, Liverpool, defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach in the final. Gladbach won the competition in 1975 and 1979, and reached the final in 1980. Feyenoord won the cup in 1974 after defeating Tottenham Hotspur 4–2 on aggregate (2–2 in London, 2–0 in Rotterdam). Liverpool won the competition for the second time in 1976 after defeating Club Brugge in the final.
During the 1980s, IFK Göteborg (1982 and 1987) and Real Madrid (1985 and 1986) won the competition twice each, with Anderlecht reaching two consecutive finals, winning in 1983 and losing to Tottenham Hotspur in 1984. 1989 saw the commencement of the Italian clubs' domination, when Diego Maradona's Napoli defeated VfB Stuttgart. The 1990s started with two all-Italian finals, and in 1992, Torino lost the final to Ajax on the away goals rule. Juventus won the competition for a third time in 1993. Inter Milan kept the cup in Italy in 1994.
1995 saw a third all-Italian final, with Parma proving their consistency after two consecutive Cup Winners' Cup finals. The only final with no Italians in the 1990s was in 1996. Internazionale reached the final the following two years, losing in 1997 to Schalke 04 on penalties, and winning another all-Italian final in 1998, taking home the cup for the third time in only eight years. Parma won the cup in 1999, the last win of the Italian-domination era. It was the last UEFA Cup/Europa League final appearance for any Italian club until Internazionale reached the 2020 final.
Since the first edition of the competition in 1971 four teams have qualified from the top leagues and then three, two or one from the lower-ranked national leagues. Qualitatively, the teams that qualified for the competition from 1971 to 1995 were usually those ranked from the second place to third, fourth or fifth place in their national league, with the exception of the teams that had won the domestic Cup in the previous season who choose to play the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.
From 1996 more than one team per nation has been allowed to participate in UEFA Champions League: two teams from 1996, four from 1999 in the top leagues; the clubs that qualified from 1999 onwards in UEFA Cup were those ranked from fifth or sixth position to seventh or eight position, significantly reducing the quality and the prestige of the competition in favour of the UEFA Champions League.
From 1994–95 clubs eliminated from the UEFA Champions League in its third qualifying round were fed into the UEFA Cup, and from 1999–2000 this was extended to include the team finishing third in their section in the UEFA Champions League group stage (this rule will last until the end of 2023–24 season: in 25 years 9 teams that won the competition was coming from the elimination as third place in their UCL group-stage).
The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup competition was absorbed by UEFA Cup since 1998–99 season.UEFA website
The era of the 2000s began with victory for Galatasaray, the first team to lift the trophy having begun the season in the UEFA Champions League and the First Turkish team to win the trophy, defeating Arsenal. Liverpool won the competition for the third time in 2001. In 2002, Feyenoord became winners for the second time, defeating Borussia Dortmund. Porto triumphed in the 2003 and 2011 tournaments, with the latter victory against fellow Portuguese side Braga.
In 2004, the cup returned to Spain with Valencia being victorious. CSKA Moscow won in 2005. Sevilla succeeded on two consecutive occasions in 2006 and 2007, the latter in a final against fellow Spaniards Espanyol. Zenit Saint Petersburg won in 2008, defeating fellow finalists Rangers. Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk, won in 2009, the first Ukrainian side to do so.
Since the 2009–10 season, the competition was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League. At the same time, the UEFA Intertoto Cup, UEFA's third-tier competition, was discontinued and merged into the new Europa League.
Atlético Madrid won twice in three seasons, in 2010 and 2012, the latter in another all-Spanish final between them and Athletic Bilbao. In 2013, Chelsea became the first Champions League holders to win the UEFA Cup/Europa League the following year. In 2014, Sevilla won their third cup in eight years after defeating Benfica on penalties. In 2015, Sevilla won their fourth UEFA Cup/Europa League and, in an unprecedented feat, they defended their title a third year in a row beating Liverpool in the 2016 final, making them the most successful team in the history of the competition with five titles. Atlético won their third title in 2018. The 2019 all-London final between Chelsea and Arsenal was the first UEFA Cup/Europa League final between two teams from the same city. Sevilla added a record-extending sixth victory in 2020, after defeating Inter Milan, and won an unprecedented seventh title in 2023. Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur are the only clubs to have won the competition in three different decades.
Trophy The UEFA Cup, also known as the Coupe UEFA, is the trophy awarded annually by UEFA to the football club that wins the UEFA Europa League. Before the 2009–10 season, both the competition and the trophy were known as the 'UEFA Cup'.
Before the competition was renamed the UEFA Europa League in the 2009–10 season, the UEFA regulations stated that a club could keep the original trophy for a year before returning it to UEFA. After its return, the club could keep a four-fifths scale replica of the original trophy. Upon their third consecutive win or fifth win overall, a club could retain the trophy permanently.
Under the new regulations, the trophy remains in UEFA's keeping at all times. A full-size replica trophy is awarded to each winner of the competition. A club that wins three consecutive times or five times overall will receive a multiple-winner badge. As of 2016–17, only Sevilla has earned the honour to wear the multiple-winner badge, having achieved both of the prerequisites in 2016.
The trophy was designed and crafted by Silvio Gazzaniga, who also designed the FIFA World Cup Trophy, working for Bertoni, for the 1972 UEFA Cup Final. It weighs and is silver on a yellow marble plinth. tall, the cup is formed by a base with two onyx discs in which a band with the flags of the UEFA member nations is inserted. The lower part of the sculpture symbolises the stylised footballers and is surmounted by a hand-embossed slab.
Anthem A musical theme for the competition, the Anthem, is played before every Europa League game at a stadium hosting such an event and before every television broadcast of a Europa League game as a musical element of the competition's opening sequence. It is also played when the winning team lifts the trophy after the final.
The competition's first anthem was composed by Yohann Zveig and recorded by the Paris Opera in early 2009. The theme for the re-branded UEFA Cup competition was first officially unveiled at the Grimaldi Forum on 28 August 2009 before the 2009–10 season group stage draw. A new anthem was composed by Michael Kadelbach and recorded in Berlin and was launched as part of the competition's rebranding at the start of the 2015–16 season.
A new anthem created by MassiveMusic was composed for the start of the 2018–19 season. It is also used for UEFA Conference League matches.
Format
Qualification
Qualification for the competition is based on UEFA coefficients, with better entrance rounds being offered to the more successful nations. In practice, each association has a standard number of three berths (across both the Europa League and the Conference League), except: Nations ranked 51 to 55, which have two berths Liechtenstein, which qualifies only the Cup winners
Usually, each country's places are awarded to teams who finish in various runners-up places in its top-flight league and the winner of the main cup competition. Typically the teams qualifying via the league are those in the highest places not eligible for the UEFA Champions League; however, the Belgian league awards one place via a playoff between First A and First B teams. Before its discontinuation in 2020–21, France offered a place to the winners of the Coupe de la Ligue.