UEFA Europa League

The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It is the second-tier competition of European club football, ranking below the UEFA Champions League and above the UEFA Conference League.

Introduced in 1971 as the UEFA Cup, it replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. From the 2004–05 season a group stage was added before the knockout phase. The competition took on its current name in 2009, following a change in format. The 2009 re-branding included a merge with the UEFA Intertoto Cup, producing an enlarged competition format, with an expanded group stage and a change in qualifying criteria. In the 2024–25 season, the group stage was replaced with an expanded league phase of 36 teams.

The winner of the UEFA Europa League qualifies for the UEFA Super Cup, for the following season's UEFA Champions League league phase, since the 2014–15 season, and for the UEFA–CONMEBOL Club Challenge—a friendly cup against the winners of the CONMEBOL Copa Sudamericana—since 2023.

Spanish clubs have the highest number of victories (14 wins), followed by England and Italy (10 wins each). The title has been won by 30 clubs, 14 of which have won it more than once. The most successful club in the competition is Sevilla, with seven titles. The only clubs to have won the competition in three different decades are Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur.

Tottenham Hotspur are the current holders, having beaten Manchester United 1–0 in the 2025 final. Colombian striker Radamel Falcao holds the record of most goals (17) scored in a single season of the tournament.