UEFA Europa League 2026/27

Sevilla have won this tournament seven times — in 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020 and 2023 — a record for the competition. No other side has come close to that rhythm of finals.

The Europa League is the second tier of European club football, run by UEFA. It sits below the Champions League and above the Europa Conference League, and its entrants are drawn from domestic cup winners and clubs finishing behind their league's Champions League places, with slots allocated by UEFA association coefficient. A second route feeds it: clubs knocked out of the Champions League qualifying rounds drop down into it.

The 2024–25 season brought the biggest change to how the tournament is run. The group stage was scrapped for a single league phase of 36 teams, each playing eight matches against different opponents in one combined table. The top eight go straight through to the round of 16. Those placed 9th to 24th enter knockout play-offs for the remaining places. Clubs finishing 25th to 36th are out, though some transfer to the Conference League.

Winning it carries a place in the following season's Champions League and an appearance in the UEFA Super Cup. Tottenham Hotspur are the current holders, having beaten Manchester United 1–0 in the 2024–25 final.

The competition began in 1971 as the UEFA Cup, taking over from the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. It absorbed the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1999, adopted a group stage in 2004, and took its present name in 2009.