Season 2025/2026
Source: https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/
The history of the UEFA Europa League (often referred to simply as the Europa Cup in its earlier forms) is a story of evolution across several competitions:
- Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (1955–1971):
- This was the initial predecessor of the competition.
- It was not initially run by UEFA, but by an organizing committee and was established to promote international trade fairs.
- Early participation was based on cities that held trade fairs, with only one team per city. This rule was later relaxed.
- UEFA Cup (1971–2009):
- In 1971, UEFA officially took over the competition, rebranding it as the UEFA Cup.
- It generally featured the next best-placed teams in national leagues after those qualifying for the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (later Champions League) and the now-defunct UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.
- For most of this period, the competition was a straight knockout tournament, with all ties (including the final until 1997-98) being two-legged.
- A group stage was added before the knockout phase starting with the 2004–2005 season.
- UEFA Europa League (2009–Present):
- The competition was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League for the 2009–2010 season, following a change in format.
- This rebranding included merging the remnants of the now-abolished UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup and UEFA Intertoto Cup into its qualifying structure and saw the introduction of a larger group stage.
- The format has undergone further revisions, including:
- The addition of teams dropping down from the UEFA Champions League group stage.
- The creation of the UEFA Europa Conference League (now UEFA Conference League) in the 2021-2022 season, which affected the Europa League’s size and qualifying criteria.
- A significant format change to a single League Phase (instead of a traditional group stage) from the 2024-2025 season, following the lead of the UEFA Champions League.
The competition is considered the second-tier of European club football, below the UEFA Champions League, and is highly valued, with the winner earning an automatic spot in the following season’s Champions League. Sevilla is the most successful club in the history of the competition (including the UEFA Cup era), holding a record number of titles.
