UEFA Chapions League

The UEFA Champions League (usually referred to as simply the Champions League or less frequently as the European Cup) is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It is the most prestigious club trophy in European football, and is widely considered the most prestigious club trophy in the world.

Prior to 1992 the tournament was officially called the European Champion Clubs' Cup but was usually referred to as simply the European Cup or European Champions' Cup. The competition was initially a straight knockout competition open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s the tournament began to be expanded, incorporating a round-robin group phase and more teams. Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams each for the competition. The UEFA Champions League should not be confused with the UEFA Europa League, formerly known as the UEFA Cup.

The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in the group stage, in which there are eight groups consisting of four teams each. The eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout phase, which ends with the final match in May.

The title has been won by 21 different clubs, 12 of which have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holders are Real Madrid, who have won the competition nine times, including the first five seasons it was contested. Barcelona are the current champions. Since the tournament changed name and structure in 1992, no club has managed consecutive wins.

Barclays Premier League

The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 games each totalling 380 games in the season. It is sponsored by Barclays Bank and therefore officially known as the Barclays Premier League.

The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League, which was originally founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal. The Premier League has since become the world's most watched sporting league.^[1] It is the world's most lucrative football league, with combined club revenues of £1.93 billion ($3.15bn) in 2007–08.^[2] It is also ranked first in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the last five years, ahead of Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A.^[3]

A total of 43 clubs have competed in the Premier League, but only four have won the title: Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, and Chelsea. The current champions are Manchester United, who won their eleventh Premier League title in the 2008–09 season, the most of any Premier League team.

Liverpool F.C

Liverpool Football Club (pronounced /ˈlɪvərˌpul/) is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club plays in the Premier League, and has won more trophies than any other English club. Liverpool has won a joint-record eighteen league titles,^[1] seven FA Cups, seven League Cups, and the European Cup five times, a record for an English club.

The club was founded in 1892, and quickly became a strong force in English football, winning five league championships between 1900 and 1947. However, Liverpool spent several years in the Second Division (level 2) during the late 1950s, and did not win promotion again until the appointment of Bill Shankly as manager in 1959. The club traditionally played in red and white, but this was changed to all red in the 1960s.

Under Shankly's management, Liverpool won three League Championship titles, two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup; the club's first European trophy. In the past 30 years, they have been one of the most successful clubs in English and European football; they won four European Cups between 1977 and 1984. The club experienced a lean period during the 1990s, but saw a revival when they won a cup treble in 2001 and the club's fifth European Cup in 2005.

The Heysel Stadium disaster made the club infamous in Europe; 39 Juventus fans died after a wall collapsed as they fled from charging Liverpool fans. The club was involved in another disaster four years later—the Hillsborough Disaster— which saw the death of 96 Liverpool fans in a crush against perimeter fencing. Flames were added to the club's crest in honour of the Liverpool fans who lost their lives at Hillsborough. Both disasters have had wide-ranging impacts on English and European football, and the club to this day.

Liverpool F.C. has played at Anfield since its formation, but plans to move to a new stadium in Stanley Park, which was due to be completed by 2011 but has been put on hold until economic conditions improve. Liverpool has a large and diverse fan base, which holds long-standing rivalries with several clubs. The most notable of these are their rivalries with Manchester United and Everton, with whom they regularly contest the Merseyside derby.

Manchester United F.C

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at Old Trafford in Trafford, Greater Manchester, and is one of the most popular football clubs in the world. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974–75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.^[3]

Manchester United are the reigning English champions and Club World Cup holders, having won the 2008–09 Premier League and the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup. The club is one of the most successful in the history of English football and has won 22 major honours since Alex Ferguson became manager in November 1986. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of a Treble in 1999, before winning their third in 2008. The club holds the joint record for the most English league titles with 18 and also holds the record for the most FA Cup wins with 11.^[4]

Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club,^[5] and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with an estimated value of around £1.136 billion (€1.319 billion / $1.870 billion) as of April 2009.^[6] Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs,^[7] and its replacement, the European Club Association.^[8]

Chelsea F.C

Chelsea Football Club (pronounced /ˈtʃɛlsiː/, also known as The Blues or previously The Pensioners) is a professional English football club based in West London. The team, founded in 1905, plays in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea have been English champions three times, and have won the FA Cup five times, the League Cup four times and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup twice.^[2]

The club had their first major success in 1955, winning the league championship. Chelsea won several cup competitions during the 1960s and 1970s, but after that did not win another major title until 1997. The past decade has been the most successful period in Chelsea’s history, capped by winning consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006, and reaching their first UEFA Champions League final in 2008.

Arsenal F.C

Arsenal Football Club (pronounced /ˈɑrsənl, ˈɑrsnəl/) (often simply known as Arsenal or The Arsenal, or by their nickname The Gunners) are an English professional football club based in Holloway, North London. They play in the Premier League and are one of the most successful clubs in English football, having won thirteen First Division and Premier League titles and ten FA Cups. They hold the record for the longest uninterrupted period in the English top flight and are the only Premier League side to have completed a season unbeaten.

Arsenal were founded in 1886 and were the first Southern club to join the Football League, in 1893. They won their first major trophies in the 1930s, with five League Championship titles and two FA Cups. After a lean period in the post-war years they became the second club of the 20th century to win the League and FA Cup Double in 1970–71, and during the past twenty years have recorded a series of successes – in this time Arsenal have won a Cup Double, two further League and FA Cup Doubles, and became the first London club to reach the UEFA Champions League Final.

Barcelona F.C

Fútbol Club Barcelona (Catalan pronunciation: [fudˈbɔɫ ˌklup bəɾsəˈlonə], Spanish: [ˈfutβol ˌkluβ barθeˈlona]), also known simply as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça (Catalan: [ˈbaɾsə], Spanish: [ˈbarsa]), is a sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is best known for its football team, which was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Spanish men led by Joan Gamper. The club has become a Catalan institution, hence the motto "Més que un club" (More than a club). The official Barça's anthem is El Cant del Barça by Josep Maria Espinàs.

FC Barcelona is one of three clubs that have never been relegated from La Liga and the second most successful club in Spanish football after Real Madrid, having won nineteen La Liga titles, a record twenty-five Spanish Cups, eight Spanish Super Cups, four Eva Duarte Cups and two League Cups. They are also one of the most successful clubs in European football having won thirteen official major European trophies in total, incluses ten UEFA competitions.^[1] They have won three UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups (the forerunner to the UEFA Cup) and three UEFA Super Cups. In 2009, Barcelona became the first club in Spain to win the treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League. The club is also the only European side to have played continental football in every season since its inception in 1955.