Continental club football
The UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League is the top club competition in European football. It is contested by 36 clubs from across the continent, with qualifying rounds beginning in summer and the main league phase running from September to January before the knockout rounds decide the champion in late May or early June.
What the Champions League is
The Champions League is UEFA's flagship club competition and the highest level of European club football.
The competition brings together 36 clubs in the league phase, with the strongest leagues providing several teams each and smaller leagues usually entering their champions through qualifying. Most clubs qualify through their finishing position in their domestic league the previous season, although the stage they enter depends on UEFA's access list.
The tournament has been UEFA's flagship competition since it was launched in 1955, originally as the European Cup. It was renamed the UEFA Champions League in 1992 when UEFA added a group stage to the early rounds. The format was reshaped again in 2024 with the move to a single league phase replacing the group stage.
The league phase
The Champions League now begins with a single league phase rather than a group stage.
All 36 clubs are placed into one combined league for the first phase of the competition. Each team plays eight different opponents — four at home and four away — drawn from a seeded pot system that ensures a mix of stronger and weaker teams in every team's fixtures. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a defeat, exactly as in any domestic league.
At the end of the eight league-phase matches, all 36 teams are ranked in a single combined table. The top eight teams progress directly to the round of 16. Teams ranked from ninth to twenty-fourth go into a two-legged knockout play-off to decide the other eight places in the round of 16. The bottom twelve teams — those ranked 25th to 36th — are eliminated from European football altogether for that season.
The knockout stage
From the round of 16 onwards the competition is a two-legged knockout, with a single-match final.
Round of 16 to semi-finals
All ties are played over two legs, one at each team's home ground. The team scoring more goals across both matches goes through. If the aggregate score is level after both legs, the tie is settled with extra time at the end of the second leg, and then a penalty shoot-out if needed.
The final
The final is a single match held at a neutral venue chosen by UEFA two seasons in advance. If the final is level after 90 minutes, extra time and then a penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner. The final is played in late May or early June, depending on the season's schedule.
Seeding through the knockout
The bracket is shaped by each team's league-phase finishing position. Higher-ranked teams receive seeding advantages in the knockout play-offs and round of 16, and league-phase ranking can also affect the order of home and away legs in later rounds.
No away goals rule
UEFA abolished the away goals rule in 2021. A goal scored away from home now counts the same as a goal scored at home, so an aggregate score that ends level always goes to extra time, regardless of where the goals were scored.
When the Champions League takes place
The competition runs across most of the European football season.
Qualifying rounds for the lower-ranked entrants start in early July, well before most domestic seasons begin. The main league phase is played across eight midweek match nights between September and the end of January, with two matches per team per month on average. The knockout play-offs are played in February, the round of 16 in February and March, and the quarter-finals and semi-finals in April and May. The final is usually held in late May or early June, after the European domestic seasons have ended.
All Champions League matches are played in midweek — Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the main rounds — so they fit around the regular weekend league fixtures in the participating clubs' countries.
How clubs qualify
Almost every Champions League place is decided by how clubs perform in their national league the previous season.
The number of places each country receives is set by UEFA's country coefficient — a ranking based on how the country's clubs have performed in continental competition over the past five seasons. The strongest leagues (currently several of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France, depending on the coefficient cycle) get four places each. Smaller leagues get one place each, awarded to the national champion.
The winner of the Champions League and the winner of the Europa League also qualify for the next season's Champions League regardless of their league position, so a club can defend its title without finishing in a top-four spot in its domestic league. Two further places are awarded each year through UEFA's league performance rankings — the top two countries in the previous season's European competitions get an extra Champions League place each.
What clubs qualify for
Champions League success leads on to several further competitions.
The Champions League winner is the entry point into intercontinental club football. They play in the next FIFA Intercontinental Cup, an annual short tournament that pits the European champion against the winners of the other confederations. They also qualify for the next four-yearly FIFA Club World Cup, the 32-team tournament that decides a global club champion.
Closer to home, the Champions League winner plays the Europa League winner in the UEFA Super Cup the following August — a one-off match held at a neutral venue that opens the new European season.
The most successful clubs
A small group of clubs has dominated the competition across its history.
Real Madrid
The most successful club in the competition, with 15 titles. Real Madrid's domination began at the very start — they won the first five European Cups between 1956 and 1960, and have continued to win regularly into the modern era, including a run of four titles in five years between 2014 and 2018.
AC Milan
Seven titles, including dominant Italian sides in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and again in 2003 and 2007. Milan is the second-most successful club in the competition's history.
Bayern Munich and Liverpool
Six titles each. Bayern's wins span from the mid-1970s to 2020, including three in a row in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Liverpool's six come across the late 1970s and 1980s and again in 2005 and 2019.
Barcelona
Five titles, with their first European Cup win coming in 1992 and four more Champions League-era victories since then. Barcelona became one of the defining clubs of the modern competition, especially through their 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015-winning sides.
Multiple winners since 1992
In the Champions League era, Real Madrid lead the way, followed by Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United as multiple winners. One-time winners in the modern era include Marseille, Ajax, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Inter, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
Spain and England lead the country count
Spanish clubs have won the competition more than any other country's clubs, followed by English and Italian clubs. The all-time list also shows how different eras have been shaped by different leagues, from Spanish dominance at the start to Italian, English, Dutch, German and later Spanish success.
A short history
The Champions League has grown from a small 16-team knockout into the largest club competition in football.
The European Cup was launched in 1955 as a knockout tournament between the national champions of each of UEFA's member associations. Real Madrid won the first five editions, with their captain Alfredo Di Stéfano scoring in every final. The tournament expanded slowly over the following decades, with the field growing as more European countries founded leagues that produced champions.
The biggest changes came in 1992, when UEFA added a group stage and allowed more than one club from each country to enter for the first time, and again in 2024, when the group stage was replaced with the current league phase. These two changes opened the competition to far more clubs and gave it the league-and-knockout shape it has today, while keeping the basic principle — that the best clubs in Europe meet across the season to produce a single European champion — intact since 1955.
Women's and youth versions
UEFA runs a parallel set of Champions League competitions in the women's game and at junior level.
The UEFA Women's Champions League is the equivalent competition for women's club football. Launched in 2001 as the UEFA Women's Cup and renamed in 2009, it runs alongside the men's competition through the season. UEFA also runs the UEFA Youth League, which is contested in parallel by the under-19 teams of the clubs competing in the men's Champions League, and gives the same clubs' academies an annual continental competition of their own.
What to read next
From the Champions League, the natural next steps are the other UEFA competitions or the level above.