The UEFA Europa League

The Europa League is contested by 36 clubs from across Europe, drawn mainly from domestic league finishes and cup wins, plus qualifying-round clubs that did not make the Champions League. The winners earn a place in the next Champions League, which gives the competition a clear sporting incentive beyond the trophy itself — a route into Europe's top club tournament without having to finish in a Champions League qualifying place at home.

The competition was founded in 1971 as the UEFA Cup and was renamed the Europa League in 2009. After the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup ended in 1999, domestic cup winners were folded into the UEFA Cup qualification route. As the successor to the UEFA Cup, the Europa League is one of European football's long-running continental club competitions.

All 36 clubs are placed into a single combined league. Each team plays eight different opponents — four at home and four away — drawn from a seeded pot system. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a defeat. At the end of the eight league-phase matches, all 36 teams are ranked in one 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 round-of-16 places. Teams ranked 25th to 36th are eliminated from European competition for the season — they do not drop down into the Conference League the way teams used to drop down from the Champions League into the Europa League under the old group-stage format.

Qualifying rounds for the smaller-league entrants begin in early July. The league phase is played from September to the end of January. The knockout play-offs are held in February, the round of 16 in March, the quarter-finals in April, the semi-finals in late April and early May, and the final in late May.

Europa League matches are usually played on Thursdays rather than Tuesdays or Wednesdays. In the current format, one league-phase matchweek can also include Wednesday fixtures, giving the competition its own exclusive European week and helping UEFA and broadcasters organise the continental calendar.

The number of places each association receives is set by UEFA's country coefficient. In the current access list, Europa League places are mainly allocated to domestic cup winners, selected high league finishers from stronger associations, qualifying-round winners and clubs transferred from Champions League qualifying. In the highest-ranked associations, Europa League places often go to the main domestic cup winners and clubs finishing just below the Champions League places. In smaller associations, clubs usually enter through qualifying rather than going straight into the league phase.

Clubs eliminated from Champions League qualifying also enter the Europa League at different stages, depending on the round and path in which they were eliminated. This means the final Europa League field is a mix of domestic qualifiers, qualifying-round winners and Champions League qualifying-round losers.

The Europa League winners earn a place in the following season's Champions League. Since the introduction of the current format, that usually means a place in the Champions League league phase, unless they have already qualified through their domestic leagues and UEFA's access list is rebalanced. This makes the Europa League an unusually attractive second-tier competition — clubs outside their countries' Champions League places can still reach Europe's top competition by winning it.

The Europa League winners also play the Champions League winners in the UEFA Super Cup the following August. There is no direct path from the Europa League into the FIFA Club World Cup or FIFA Intercontinental Cup, but clubs that win the Europa League and then win the Champions League the following year would, of course, enter both.

The competition began in 1971 as the UEFA Cup, replacing the unofficial Inter-Cities Fairs Cup that had run since the 1950s. Tottenham Hotspur won the inaugural final in 1972, beating Wolverhampton Wanderers across two legs. The competition grew steadily over the following decades as a route for strong league finishers who had not qualified for the European Cup, while domestic cup winners had their own separate Cup Winners' Cup until that competition ended in 1999.

UEFA discontinued the Cup Winners' Cup in 1999 and folded domestic cup winners into the UEFA Cup qualification route. In 2009 the UEFA Cup was renamed the Europa League, with a new 48-team group stage and centralised branding that moved the competition closer to the Champions League model. The current 36-team league phase, introduced in 2024, was the most significant format change since the rebrand.

The UEFA Women's Europa Cup was introduced for the 2025/26 season as a second-tier women's club competition. It sits below the UEFA Women's Champions League and gives more clubs a route into European women's football, but it is not a direct format equivalent of the men's Europa League: it is played entirely as two-legged knockout ties, including the final. The men's Europa League does not have a direct under-19 equivalent — youth competition at that level is contested through the UEFA Youth League, which runs alongside the men's Champions League rather than the Europa League.