European Cup Winners’ Cup

European Cup Winners’ Cup, now it is known as the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup (abbreviated as CWC), was a football club competition contested annually by the most recent winners of all European domestic cup competitions. The cup was one of the many inter-European club competitions that have been organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The first competition was held in the 1960–61 season, but the Cup was not recognized by the governing body of European football until October 1963. The tournament ran for 39 seasons with its final edition held in 1998–1999, after which it was absorbed into the UEFA Cup.

The Cup Winners’ Cup was regarded by UEFA as the second most prestigious European club competition, behind the European Cup and ahead of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (later the UEFA Cup), although many football writers and fans considered the UEFA Cup as harder to win. The winner of the tournament progressed to play the winner of the European Cup (later the UEFA Champions League) in the UEFA Super Cup. Since the abolition of the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Super Cup place previously reserved for the Cup Winners’ Cup winner has been taken by the winner of the UEFA Cup, now the UEFA Europa League. The competition’s official name was originally the European Cup Winners’ Cup; it was renamed the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.

Throughout its 39-year history, the Cup Winners’ Cup was always a straight knock-out tournament with two-legged home and away ties until the single match final staged at a neutral venue, the only exception to this being the two-legged final in the competition’s first year. In common with other UEFA club tournaments, the away goals rule was applied when aggregate scores were tied. The format was identical to the original European Champions’ Cup with 32 teams contesting four knock-out rounds prior to the showpiece final, with the tournament usually running from September to May each year. Following the influx of new UEFA member nations, a regular August preliminary round was added to reduce the number of entrants to 32.

Entry was restricted to one club from each UEFA member association, the only exception being to allow the current Cup Winners’ Cup holders to enter alongside their nation’s new domestic cup winners in order to allow them a chance to defend their Cup Winners’ Cup title (although no club ever managed to do this). However, if this team also qualified for the European Champions’ Cup then they would default on their place in the Cup Winners’ Cup and no other team would replace them.

On occasions when a club completed a domestic league and cup ‘double’ that club would enter the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and their place in the Cup Winners’ Cup would be taken by the domestic cup runners-up. In the competition’s final year, Heerenveen of the Netherlands entered the Cup Winners’ Cup despite only reaching the semi-final of the previous season’s Dutch Cup. This was due to both Dutch Cup finalists Ajax and PSV Eindhoven qualifying for the recently expanded Champions League.