European Champion Clubs' Cup - The Trophy

The Trophy

Main article: European Cup and UEFA Champions League history See also: List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League winners

Since 2009, Champions League winners have not kept the real trophy, which remains in UEFA's keeping at all times. A full-size replica trophy, the Champions League winners trophy, is awarded to the winning club with their name engraved on it. Winning clubs are also permitted to make replicas of their own; however, they must be clearly marked as such and can be a maximum of eighty percent the size of the actual trophy.

The original European Cup trophy was donated by L'Équipe, a French sports newspaper. This trophy was awarded permanently to Real Madrid in March 1967. At the time, they were the reigning champions, and had won six titles altogether, including the first five competitions from 1956 to 1960. Celtic thus became the first club to win the cup in its current design in 1967.

The replacement trophy, with a somewhat different design from the original, was commissioned by UEFA from Jörg Stadelmann, a jeweller from Bern in Switzerland. At a cost of 10,000 Swiss francs, it was silver, 74 cm high, weighing 8 kg. The trophy bears the title "COUPE DES CLUBS CHAMPIONS EUROPÉENS'". Subsequent replacement trophies have replicated this design. In Spanish, it is nicknamed La Orejona ("big-ears") because of the shape of the handles and for this reason, Luis Omar Tapia, a long-time ESPN UCL announcer made the name "la Orejona" popular on the American continents.

The trophy that was awarded at the 2012 UEFA Champions League Final is the sixth, and has been in use since 2006, after Liverpool won their fifth European Cup in 2005.

The previous rule, introduced before the 1968–69 season, allowed a club to keep the trophy after five wins or three consecutive wins. At that point, Real Madrid were the only club meeting either qualification, and indeed met both. Once a club had been awarded the trophy, the count was reset to zero. For example, a club with no prior titles which won six titles in a row would have been permanently awarded trophies after the third and sixth wins (each for three-in-a-row) but not after their fifth win. A club whose Champions League title win was not a fifth overall or third consecutive previously kept the real trophy for ten months after their victory and received a scaled-down replica to keep permanently. Since 2009, the real trophy remains with UEFA at all times, but the winning club now receives a full-sized replica with their name engraved on it.

Since 2009, a club that gets three consecutive or five overall wins will get a special mark of recognition, the multiple-winner badge, instead of keeping the original trophy.