The Trophy

The current UEFA Champions League Trophy, which stands 73.5cm tall and weighs 8.5kg, is the sixth overall and dates back to 2006.

A rule introduced in the 1968/69 season allowed the cup to become the property of any club which won the competition five times or three years in a row. That means Real Madrid CF, AFC Ajax, FC Bayern München, AC Milan and, since 2005, Liverpool FC all have an original in their trophy rooms. Under new regulations, any club which wins the trophy three consecutive times or five times in total receives a special mark of recognition, with the club then starting a new cycle from zero.

The trophy that the winning captain will lift at Wembley Stadium in London is the fifth version of the current design. After Real Madrid were allowed to keep the original in 1967, UEFA’s General Secretary, Hans Bangerter, decided to create a new design and called in a local specialist in Berne, Jürg Stadelmann.

“My father Hans and I went along to Herr Bangerter’s office and covered the whole floor with the drawings,” recalled Stadelmann. “He made comments like, ‘The Bulgarians would like the bottom of that. The Spaniards would like that, but the Italians would prefer that and the Germans would go for this bit.’ We put the design together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was a design constituted of many parts yet I like it and I think everyone in football likes it as well.

“I remember that it had to be finished before 28 March,” Stadelmann added, “because I was getting married and taking my wife on a ten-day boat trip to Los Angeles. The trophy took 340 hours to make. I did the finer work, then it was finished off by the engraver, Fred Bänninger. On time, I am glad to say.”

UEFA Overview

The Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA) was founded in Basle, Switzerland, on 15 June 1954, bringing to fruition the pioneering vision of a handful of key football administrators of the time.

Since then, the parent body of European football – one of six continental confederations of world football’s governing body FIFA – has grown into the cornerstone of the game on this continent, working with and acting on behalf of Europe’s national football associations and other stakeholders in the game to promote football and strengthen its position as arguably the most popular sport in the world.

The guiding principle of the initiators in the early 1950s was the fostering and development of unity and solidarity among the European football community. Now, over 50 years later, UEFA’s mission remains very much the same. But it has also become the ‘guardian’ of football in Europe, protecting and nurturing the well-being of the sport at all levels, from the elite and its stars to the thousands who play the game as a hobby.

In 1960, UEFA had a full-time staff of just three people. That figure has risen steadily through the years as the organisation has reacted to changing circumstances. Today, over 340 people of more than 29 different nationalities – administrators, secretaries, IT specialists, coaches, journalists, translators – are employed at UEFA’s administrative HQ located in the town of Nyon, on the shores of Lake Geneva in western Switzerland.

Over the decades, UEFA has developed from a mainly administrative body into a dynamic organisation that is in tune with the vast requirements of modern-day football. UEFA is a sporting authority which does not have the powers of a government; it represents Europe’s national football associations, and can only act in accordance with the wishes of these associations.

When UEFA was founded, the body comprised 25 national associations. The number of member associations rose gradually until the beginning of the 1990s, when political developments in eastern Europe and the fragmentation of the USSR led to a rapid growth in the number of new associations. Consequently, there are now 53 associations under UEFA’s wing.

From: http://www.uefa.com/uefa/aboutuefa/organisation/history/index.html