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What was the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup?

A forerunner to the UEFA Cup, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was an annual soccer competition held between 1955 and 1971. It was set up to promote international trade fairs in European cities and featured teams from those cities playing in matches timed to coincide with such fairs. The first Fairs Cup involved teams from Barcelona, Basle, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan, and Zagreb. Barcelona beat a London 8–2 on aggregate in a two-leg final.

How was the UEFA Cup started?

The UEFA Cup grew out of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup after the Union des Associations Européennes de Football took over the competition in 1971, at which time UEFA disassociated the cup from trade fairs. The competition was traditionally open to the runners-up of domestic leagues, but it was merged with UEFA’s previous second-tier European competition, the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, in 1999. Since then, the winners of domestic cup competitions have also entered the UEFA Cup.