Intercontinental Club Cup

The Intercontinental Cup was an international football competition endorsed by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL), contested between representative clubs from these confederations (representatives of most developed continents in the football world), usually the winners of the UEFA Champions League and the South American Copa Libertadores. It’s also known as European/South American Cup, and also Toyota Cup from 1980 to 2004 for commercial reasons by agreement with the automaker. It ran from 1960 to 2004, when it was succeeded by the FIFA Club World Cup, although they both ran concurrently in 1999–2000.

From its formation in 1960 to 1979, the competition was as a two-legged tie, with a playoff if necessary until 1968, and penalty kicks later. During the 1970s, European participation in the Intercontinental Cup became a running question due to controversial events in the 1969 final, and some European Cup-winning teams withdrew. From 1980, the competition was contested as a single match played in Japan and sponsored by multinational automaker Toyota, which offered a secondary trophy, the Toyota Cup. At that point, the organization of the competition was passed to the Japan Football Association, though it continued to be endorsed by UEFA and CONMEBOL.

The first winner of the cup was Spanish side Real Madrid, who beat Peñarol of Uruguay in 1960. The last winner was Portuguese side Porto, defeating Colombian side Once Caldas in a penalty shoot-out in 2004. The competition ended in 2004 and it merged with the FIFA Club World Cup in 2005.

All the winning teams from Intercontinental Cup are regarded as de facto “World club champions”. According to some texts on FIFA.com, due to the superiority at sporting level of the European and South American clubs to the rest of the world, reflected earlier in the tournament for national teams, the winning clubs of the Intercontinental Cup were named world champions and can claim to be symbolic World champions, in a “symbolic” club world championship, while the FIFA Club World Cup would have another dimension, as the “true” world club showdown, created because, with the passage of time and the development of football outside Europe and South America, it had become “unrealistic” to continue to confer the symbolic title of world champion upon the winners of the Intercontinental Cup, the idea to expand it being mentioned for the first time in 1967 by Stanley Rous as CONCACAF and the AFC had established their continental club competitions and requested the participation, an expansion that was to occur only in 2000 through the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship.

Nevertheless, some European champions started to decline participation in the tournament after the events of 1969. Though “symbolic” or de facto as a club world championship, the Intercontinental Cup has always been an official title at interconfederation level, with both UEFA and CONMEBOL having always considered all editions of the competition as part of their honours.

Throughout the history of football, various attempts have been made to organize a tournament that identifies “the best club team in the world” – such as the Football World Championship, the Lipton Trophy, the Copa Rio, the Pequeña Copa del Mundo and the International Soccer League – due to FIFA’s lack of interest or inability to organize club competitions, – the Intercontinental Cup is considered by FIFA as the predecessor to the FIFA Club World Cup, which was held for the first time in 2000.

On 27 October 2017, the FIFA Council, while not promoting statistical unification between the Intercontinental Cup and the Club World Cup, in respect to the history of the two tournaments (which merged in 2005), has officialized (de jure) the world title of the Intercontinental Cup, recognizing all the winners as club world champions, with the same title of the FIFA Club World Cup winners, or “FIFA Club World Champions”.

FIFA recognizes the Intercontinental Cup as the sole direct predecessor of the Club World Cup, and the champions of both aforementioned competitions are the only ones uncontroversially officially recognized by FIFA as Club World Champions, as seen in the FIFA Club World Cup Statistical Kit, the official document of FIFA’s club competition. For the recognition request on the 1951 competition, see Copa Rio (international tournament).

The competition trophy bears the words “Coupe Européenne-Sudamericaine” (“European-South American Cup”) at the top. At the base of the trophy, there is the round logo of UEFA and a map of South America in a circle.

During the sponsorship by Toyota, the competition awarded an additional trophy, entitled “Toyota Cup”.

From 1960 to 1979, the Intercontinental Cup was played in two legs. Between 1960 and 1968, the cup was decided on points only, the same format used by CONMEBOL to determine the winner of the Copa Libertadores final through 1987. Because of this format, a third match was needed when both teams were equal on points. Commonly this match was host by the continent where the last game of the series was played. From 1969 through 1979, the competition adopted the European standard method of aggregate score, with away goals.

Starting in 1980, the final became a single match. Up until 2001, the matches were held at Tokyo’s National Stadium. Finals since 2002 were held at the Yokohama International Stadium, also the venue of the 2002 FIFA World Cup final.