The UEFA Champions League has been around for over 50 years and is the most coveted trophy in Europe. It was founded in 1955 and offers the chance for the public to watch Europe’s best competing against one another. Formerly known as the European Cup, the competition underwent a makeover in 1992 and became the UEFA Champions League when the group stages were added to the competition.The tournament starts in the summer with 76 teams and is whittled down via 2-leg qualification rounds to the 32 teams who make the group stages. On some of the important matches there is media coverage of 200 million people watching around the world, while the Champions League final draws in a billion viewers. It is considered as one of the most watched sporting tournaments around now and without question is one of the hardest tournaments to win.

Prize money for the Champions league is massive. The UEFA hands out an estimated 3 million to each team that qualifies for the competition, a further 2 and a half million pounds for qualifying for the group stages. Another 2 and a half million for the quarter finalists a further 3 million for the semi finalists, the runners up receive 4 million and the team who wins receives a well deserved 7 million. The title has been won by 21 different clubs since 1955, twelve of which have won it twice. The formidable Real Madrid have won it nine times and in the last 10 years they have reached the final twice and both times they were the victors.

Previous winners of the Champions League for the last 10 years

2011         Barcelona 3 - 1 Man United

2010         Inter Milan 2 - 0 Bayern Munich

2009         Barcelona 2 – 0 Man United

2008         Man United 1 – 1 Chelsea (Pens 6-5)

2007         AC Milan 2 – 1 Liverpool

2006         Barcelona 2 – 1 Arsenal

2005         Liverpool 3 – 3 AC Milan (Pens 3-2)

2004         Porto 3 – 0 AS Monaco

2003         AC Milan 0 – 0 Juventus (Pens 3-2)

2002         Real Madrid 2 – 1 Bayern Munchic

2001         Bayern Munich 1 – 1 Valencia (Pens 5-4)

2000         Real Madrid 3 – 0 Valencia

1999         Man United 2 – 1 Bayern Munich

This year, 2010 we will see the first ever Champions League Final on a Saturday (22^nd May 2010). This will mean that more people will watch, which means a far bigger revenue stream for TV advertising and sponsorship. The Champions League this year has some of the finest European teams such as Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Porto and many others so it will be a great tournament to watch. Who is going to win? It is really too close to call. However, most people would say that it is highly likely that a British team will make it to the final. In the last five years the final of the Champions League has contained an English club due to the quality of football in England and this year is no exception. England, for such a small country certainly has a great tradition of having such great teams who can maintain a great standard year after year. It can be seen as an honour for England to have teams making the Champions league final every year.

The tournament can last over ten months; for example, from July 2009 until May 2010. Teams tht have to go through the qualifying rounds of the Champions League draw by going through eight seperate parts of the competition before getting to the final. There is no easy route either as all the teams are the best from the top leagues in respective countries. In some competitions you can rely on luck to give you an easy group or route to the later stages of the competition but with the Champions league draw luck cannot be relied on, as the competition is stiff so all matches will be very tough.

This tournament has seen some great matches in the past few years. Without a doubt a Champions League final that stands out in anyone’s memory is the 2005 final that saw Liverpool 3-0 down at half time to a rampant AC Milan. They came back to draw 3-3 after ninety minutes and then won on penalties. Other classic finals are the 1999 final between Man United versus Bayern Munich which saw Man United come back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 in the last 5 minutes of the match. Bayern Munich were involved in another thriller three years later when they were foiled by a wonder goal from Zinedine Zidance in their 2-1 loss to real Madrid in Glasgow in 2002. Another more recent Champions League classic ending was Chelsea versus Manchester United which led to penalty shoot-out with the Captain of the team, John Terry, missing the vital spot kick and costing Chelsea the match. As you can see over the last ten years a lot of English teams have made the final illustrating the quality of football in the UK.

Ian Ryan is the webmaster of www.footballbettingtips.co.uk and has written this article on the 28^th February 2010 regarding the Champions league to let the reader know everything about this magnificent tournament.