The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournament ran for 39 seasons, with the final edition held in 1998–99, after which it was discontinued.
The first tournament was held in 1960–61, but it was organised by the Mitropa Cup's Organising Committee and not recognised by the governing body of European football until 1963, when it was accepted as a UEFA competition on the initiative of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).
From 1972 onwards, the winner of the tournament progressed to play the winner of the European Cup (later the UEFA Champions League) in the European Super Cup. Since the abolition of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Super Cup place previously reserved for the Cup Winners' Cup winner has been taken by the winner of the UEFA Cup, now the UEFA Europa League. The competition's official name was originally the European Cup Winners' Cup; it was renamed the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1994.
Format[]
Throughout its 39-year history, the Cup Winners' Cup was always a straight knock-out tournament with two-legged home and away ties until the single match final staged at a neutral venue, the only exception to this being the two-legged final in the competition's first year. In common with other UEFA club tournaments, the away goals rule was applied when aggregate scores were tied. The format was identical to the original European Champions' Cup with 32 teams contesting four knock-out rounds prior to the showpiece final, with the tournament usually running from September to May each year. Following the influx of new UEFA member nations during the 1990s, a regular August preliminary round was added to reduce the number of entrants to 32.
Entry was restricted to one club from each UEFA member association, the only exception being to allow the current Cup Winners' Cup holders to enter alongside their nation's new domestic cup winners in order to allow them a chance to defend their Cup Winners' Cup title (although no club ever managed to do this). However, if this team also qualified for the European Champions' Cup, then they would default on their place in the Cup Winners' Cup and no other team would replace them. If a domestic cup holder also wins the Cup Winners' Cup in the same season, the domestic cup runner-up will take that association's berth.
On occasions when a club completed a domestic league and cup 'double' that club would enter the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and their place in the Cup Winners' Cup would be taken by the domestic cup runners-up. In 1998–99, the competition's final year, Heerenveen of the Netherlands entered the Cup Winners' Cup despite only reaching the semi-final of the previous season's KNVB Cup. This was due to both KNVB Cup finalists Ajax and PSV Eindhoven qualifying for the recently expanded Champions League.