English football clubs in international competitions

Did You Know?

• Welsh clubs such as Swansea City, despite being members of the Football Association of Wales, took up an English place in the UEFA Europa League in 2013–14 after winning the League Cup.
• Liverpool are the most successful English and British team internationally with fourteen honours, including six Champions League titles.

International competitions

English clubs have won 52 UEFA club competition trophies, ranking second behind Spain (67). In the UEFA Champions League, six English clubs have won 15 titles and lost 12 finals, while Spanish clubs lead with 20 wins and 11 losses. In the UEFA Europa League, English clubs are second with 11 victories and 9 final losses. English teams hold a record eight wins in the now-defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, with five additional final appearances. In the non-UEFA Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, English clubs produced four winners and four runners-up, second only to Spain. The newly created UEFA Conference League has seen English clubs win a record three titles. In the former UEFA Intertoto Cup, England won four titles and had one further final appearance, ranking fifth, though English clubs often treated the tournament with disdain by sending B squads or withdrawing. In the UEFA Super Cup, England has ten wins and twelve runners-up, again second to Spain. English teams participated in UEFA competitions every year except 1955–56 and from 1985 to 1990, following the Heysel Stadium disaster ban; Liverpool was banned for six years until 1991. English clubs made six appearances in the Intercontinental Cup, winning only once, and withdrew three times. They have won the FIFA Club World Cup five times, second only to Spain. Upton Park represented Great Britain at the 1900 Summer Olympics and won the gold medal.

Full record

English clubs have won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League fifteen times and been runners-up on twelve occasions. In the UEFA Cup/Europa League, English clubs have won eleven times and reached the final on nine other occasions, including 1972, 2019, and 2025 when both finalists were English. English clubs have won the UEFA Europa Conference League/Conference League three times. They have won the UEFA Super Cup ten times and participated on twelve other occasions. English clubs won the now-defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup a record eight times and reached the final five more times. They won the now-defunct Inter-Cities Fairs Cup four times and were runners-up four times. A single-match play-off between the most successful clubs to decide permanent keepers of the trophy saw Leeds lose to Barcelona. English clubs won the now-defunct UEFA Intertoto Cup four times. The FIFA Club World Cup has been won by English clubs five times: Manchester United in 2008, Liverpool in 2019, Chelsea in 2021 and 2025, and Manchester City in 2023; Liverpool and Chelsea were also runners-up once each. The Intercontinental Cup was won by Manchester United in 1999, the only English win; English clubs contested it five other times (1968, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984), losing each time. Additionally, Liverpool in 1977 and Nottingham Forest in 1979 qualified but withdrew, with their berths taken by the respective European Cup losing finalists; Liverpool also qualified in 1978 but both they and Boca Juniors declined to play.

European Cup and UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League, formerly the European Cup, is a seasonal club competition organised by UEFA since 1955 for Europe's most successful clubs. The European Champion Clubs' Cup is considered the most prestigious club trophy. As of the end of the 2025–26 season, English clubs have fifteen European Cup wins, the most recent being Manchester City's 1–0 victory over Inter Milan in 2023. A record six English clubs have won the competition: Liverpool six times (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005, 2019), the first English team to retain the cup; Manchester United three times (1968, 1999, 2008), the first English team to win it; Nottingham Forest twice (1979, 1980), the second English team to retain it; Chelsea twice (2012, 2021); Aston Villa once (1982); and Manchester City once (2023). English clubs hold the record for most consecutive tournament victories by clubs from one country (six wins between 1977 and 1982 by Liverpool, Forest, and Villa) and most consecutive final defeats (four teams were runners-up once each between 2006 and 2009). Wolverhampton Wanderers, a dominant English side in the 1950s, played a floodlit friendly against Hungarian giants Honved in 1954, winning 3–2; the match, broadcast live on the BBC, attracted European attention and is considered a spark that created the European Cup.