The UEFA Plaque

Background

Between 1971 and 1999, UEFA organised three major competitions —the European Cup, Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup— which were played as part of the international fixture calendar. While all three carried prestige in their own right, the European Cup, which was the competition for clubs that had won their own domestic league title, was considered the most prestigious, while the UEFA Cup, in which the four teams that finished just below the national league champion were generally entered, was regarded as the hardest to win. At the start of the 1984–85 season, two clubs —Juventus and Hamburg SV— had won two of the three European competitions each, and each was competing that season in the competition that they needed to win to complete the set; Juventus in the European Cup and Hamburg in the UEFA Cup. Hamburg were eliminated in the third round of the UEFA Cup, while Juventus reached the 1985 European Cup final, winning the game 1–0 to become the first club to have won all three of UEFA's major competitions.

In December 1987, the UEFA organising committee proposed in Zürich the institution of a special award for clubs that had won all three competitions. Having been ratified, it was announced it would be awarded for the first time to all eligible clubs at the UEFA meeting planned for May 1988. While Anderlecht in European Champions' Cup and Milan AC in UEFA Cup during the 1987–88 season were potentially in a position to match Juventus' achievement, being both eliminated in the quarter-finals and in the second round, respectively; when the new UEFA Plaque was finally conferred in July 1988, it was to Juventus alone that it was awarded. In a similar situation were both Ajax and Bayern Munich, which unsuccessfully participated in the 1988–89 UEFA Cup.

Description

The award consists of a rectangular silver plaque on which are superimposed silhouettes of three trophies that represent the tournaments mentioned, above a golden laurel wreath and the European football government body badge, also in gold. Also, the plaque have the following inscription in French, then the confederation's leading administrative language, which translated to English:

|Hommage L'UEFA au Juventus F.C. Premier club ayant remporté les trois competitions inter-clubs de l'UEFA Coupe des Clubs Champions Européenns Coupe des Vainqueurs de Coupe Européenne Coupe UEFA. |Tribute The UEFA to Juventus F.C. First club to have won the three international UEFA club competitions European Champion Clubs' Cup European Cup Winners' Cup UEFA Cup.}}

Before the premiation to Juventus from UEFA, the Old Lady additionally won the 1984 European Super Cup and the 1985 Intercontinental Cup, obtaining its first worldwide title and became the first club in the world to have triumph in then all-five international competitions.

Recipients

On 12 July 1988, at the beginning of the 1988–89 European competitions seeding held in Geneva (Switzerland), then UEFA president Jacques Georges presented the prize to then Juventus president Giampiero Boniperti.

In July 1992, after winning the European Champions' Cup, then FC Barcelona president Josep Lluís Núñez requested of UEFA a similar recognition, stating that his club had equalled Juventus' record, having won formerly the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. European football's governing body, now led by Lennart Johansson, rejected it because the Spanish club had never won the UEFA Cup proper, and UEFA does not recognize its predecessor, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, previously won by the Blaugrana, as an official competition. Eight months later, Johansson proposed, unsuccessfully, to merge all three seasonal competitions in an unique élite pan-European championship which the better teams in the continent would be involved.

Since UEFA awarded Juventus with the European Plaque, four other clubs have won the three seasonal confederation competitions: Ajax (1992, to whom the recognition was initially scheduled after their triumph in 1991–92 UEFA Cup through the away goals rule, notwithstanding the confederation latter decision not to award them for unknown reasons), and Manchester United (2017).

On 28 August 2025, at Nyon, the prize was relaunched and Chelsea received a similar recognition than Juventus 38 years ago, after won its first Conference League–a competition often regarded by the specialist press as the third-tier of the newfangled European club pyramidal system institued in 2021 by Aleksander Čeferin's initiative: separate the Europa League's lower teams from the highest in front of a new tournament and that include the relegation of some eliminated clubs to the immediate lower tournament and the promotion of the winning team to the immediate higher tier the successive season– qualifing to it after finished sixth in 2023–24 Premier League; completing this achievement with the previous club's set of international seasonal trophies. However, Čeferin presented the award to then Chelsea CEO Jason Gannon prior the 2025–26 UEFA seasonal tournaments draw.

As of January 2026, there are 27 former Cup Winners' Cup winners to can achieve this feat if won the Champions League and the Europa League, while there are 13 teams what need won at least one of the aforementioned trophies for complete the UEFA set.

Notes

References

Bibliography

References

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