Cup Winners Cup

Background

The UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup (also known as the European Cup Winners’ Cup) was a football club competition contested annually by the most recent winners of all European domestic cup competitions. The cup is one of the many inter-European club competitions that have been organised by UEFA. The first competition was held in the 1960/61 season, and the last in 1998/99. The competition was then abolished to make way for a further expansion to the UEFA Champions League, with domestic cup winners now gaining entry into the UEFA Cup.

During its existence, the Cup Winners’ Cup was regarded as the second most prestigious European club competition out of the three major tournaments, behind the UEFA Champions League/European Cup and ahead of the UEFA Cup, although many commentators felt the Cup Winners’ Cup was the easiest of the three competitions to win.

From 1972 onwards, the winner of the tournament would go on to play the winner of the European Cup (later the UEFA Champions League) in the European Super Cup. The Cup Winners’ Cup was eventually discontinued mainly due to the expansion of the UEFA Champions League in the late 1990‘s, and the CWC’s Super Cup place was taken by the winner of the UEFA Cup.

From its inception until 1994, the competition was known only as the ‘European Cup Winners’ Cup’ – from the 1994/95 season onwards, UEFA officially named the tournament the ‘UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup’.