The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in the group stage, in which there are eight groups consisting of four teams each. The eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout phase, which ends with the final match in May. The tournament was conceived as a continental competition for winners of the European national football leagues, as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, abbreviated to European Cup.

Between 1960 and 2004, the winner of the tournament qualified for the now defunct Intercontinental Cup against the winner of the Copa Libertadores of South America. Since then, the winner automatically qualifies for the FIFA-organisedClub World Cup with other winners of continental club championships.

Tournament

The tournament proper begins with a group stage of 32 teams, divided into 8 groups. Seeding is used whilst making the draw for this stage, whilst teams from the same country may not be drawn into groups together. Each team meets the others in its group home and away in a round-robin format. The top two teams from each group progress to the round of 16, which commences the knock-out tournament. The third team enters theEuropa League.

For this stage, one group's winners play against another group's runners-up, and teams from the same country may not be drawn against each other. From the quarter-finals onwards, the draw is entirely random, with country protection no longer in force.

The group stage is played through the autumn, whilst the knock-out stage starts after a winter break. The knock-out ties are played in a two-legged format, with the exception of the final. This is typically held in the final two weeks of May.

Media coverage

The competition attracts a huge television audience, not just in Europe, but throughout the world. The matches are broadcast in over 70 countries in more than 40 languages each year, and some important matches can attract over 200 million TV audience, often considered as one of the most watched sports events on TV.

Sponsorship

Like the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA Champions League is sponsored by a group of multinational corporations, in contrast to the single main sponsor of the Barclays Premier League, the Ligue 1 or Serie A TIM. When the Champions League was created in 1992, it was decided that a maximum of eight companies should be allowed to sponsor the event, with each corporation being allocated four advertising boards around the perimeter of the pitch, as well as logo placement at pre- and post-match interviews and a certain number of tickets to each match. This, combined with a deal to ensure tournament sponsors were given priority on television advertisements during matches, ensured that each of the tournament's main sponsors was given maximum exposure.

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