Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

It is considered the predecessor to the UEFA Cup (now the UEFA Europa League). The competition was the idea of FIFA vice-president and executive committee member Ernst Thommen, Italian Football Federation president and FIFA executive committee member Ottorino Barassi, and the English Football Association general secretary, Stanley Rous, who later became an executive committee member and vice-president of UEFA (1958–1961) and president of FIFA (1961–1974). As the name suggests, the competition was set up to promote international trade fairs. Friendly games were regularly held between teams from cities holding trade fairs and it was from these games that the competition evolved. Initially, the competition was only open to cities that hosted trade fairs, and where the cities' clubs finished in their national league had no relevance. Early competitions also featured a "one city, one team" rule, with some teams selected from multiple clubs.

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Trophy (FC Barcelona Museum). It bears the French name of the tournament, Coupe Internationale des Villes de Foires ("International Fairs Cities Cup").
Organising body	Fairs Cup Committee
Founded	1955; 69 years ago (1955)
Abolished	1971; 53 years ago (1971)
Region	Europe
Number of teams	12 (first edition) 64 (last edition)
Related competitions	UEFA Cup (replaced by)
Last champions	Leeds United (2nd title)
Most successful club(s)	Barcelona (3 titles)

After 1964, the Fairs Cup was sometimes referred to as the "Runners-up Cup", with teams now qualifying based on league position. The winning team received the Noel Beard Trophy (Trophée Noel Beard), named for the cutler who designed it.

The competition was organised by the Fairs Cup Committee which was led by some FIFA executives until 1971, when it was taken over by UEFA and replaced with the UEFA Cup. According to UEFA general secretary Hans Bangerter, "The competition was very successful but the time came when the UEFA Executive Committee thought that such a major competition should be governed and organised by UEFA itself, which could ensure that standard rules were followed and could deal with refereeing and disciplinary matters." While the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup is generally considered to be the predecessor to the UEFA Cup, it was not organised by UEFA and ran under different regulations; consequently, the confederation does not consider clubs' records in the Fairs Cup to be part of their European record.

Spanish era

The first competition was to be held over two seasons to avoid clashes with national leagues fixtures. Because it was also intended to coincide with trade fairs, it ran over into a third year. It commenced in 1955 and finished in 1958. Cities that entered teams included Barcelona, Basel, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, Cologne, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan, and Zagreb. The first competition included a group stage and also featured some city representative teams instead of clubs. The eventual finalists were the city of Barcelona, dubbed Barcelona XI, and a London XI. While the latter side consisted of players from 11 clubs, the former was effectively FC Barcelona with one player from RCD Espanyol. After a 2–2 draw at Stamford Bridge, Barcelona emerged triumphant after winning the return 6–0. A second tournament took place between 1958 and 1960. This time, the group stage format was abandoned in favour of a knockout tournament. Barcelona retained the cup, beating Birmingham City 4–1 in the final.

The third tournament was held over the course of the 1960–61 season and all subsequent tournaments were completed over one season. The season also saw the holders, Barcelona, compete in both the Fairs Cup and European Cup. During the early days of European competition, these tournaments were effectively rivals and there was little or no co-ordination between the administrators running them. The European Cup quickly established itself as the premier club competition, largely because it had the advantage of featuring national league champions and was completed in a single season from the very start. The efforts of Barcelona ended in failure in both competitions. In the Fairs Cup quarter-finals, they lost 7–6 on aggregate to Hibernian, while in the European Cup, they were beaten in the final by Benfica. Roma took three games to beat Hibernian in the semi-finals before they progressed to the final. Birmingham City reached their second final in two years but once again they were defeated. After a 2–2 draw at home, they lost 2–0 to Roma in the return.

The 1961–62 season saw the rules amended to allow three teams from each country to enter. The "one city, one team" rule was temporarily abandoned and two teams represented each of Edinburgh, Milan, and Barcelona (respectively Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian, Internazionale and A.C. Milan, and FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol). This increase in teams resulted in Spanish teams continuing to dominate the competition. FC Barcelona were now regularly joined by Valencia CF and Real Zaragoza. These three clubs won the competition six times between them from 1958 to 1966. The Fairs Cup saw three all-Spanish finals in 1962, 1964, and 1966. The 1962 final saw Valencia CF beat FC Barcelona 7–3 on aggregate and in 1963 they retained the title after beating Dinamo Zagreb with a 4–1 aggregate score. They reached their third final in 1964 but lost 2–1 to Real Zaragoza in a single game at the Camp Nou.

The 1965 tournament saw a record entry of 48 teams, testimony to the growing status of the Fairs Cup. It also produced only the second final not to feature a Spanish team. Ferencvárosi TC of Hungary beat Juventus in another single-game final. The 1966 competition attracted attention for all the wrong reasons. Chelsea were pelted with rubbish at Roma and Leeds United fought a bruising encounter with Valencia CF which ended with three dismissals. Leeds also had Johnny Giles sent off in the semi-final against Real Zaragoza. The final saw FC Barcelona beat Real Zaragoza 4–3 on aggregate.

English era

The 1967 tournament saw the emergence of English clubs with Leeds United reaching the final. Although they lost to Dinamo Zagreb, they returned the following season and defeated Ferencvárosi TC to become the first English club to win the competition. The subsequent victories of Newcastle United and Arsenal and a second win for Leeds United saw English clubs winning the last four Fairs Cup tournaments. The last final saw Leeds United declared winners on away goals after drawing with Juventus 3–3 on aggregate.

UEFA Cup

In the 1971–72 season the competition was abolished and replaced by the UEFA Cup after UEFA revised the entry regulations and concluded that the "one city one team" rule related with the Fairs Cup must be abolished, which had had a particularly bad effect on English entrants for 1969–70, when Liverpool (2nd), Arsenal (4th), Southampton (7th), and Newcastle United (9th-also holders) got the places, at the expense of Everton (3rd), Chelsea (5th), Tottenham Hotspur (6th), and West Ham United (8th). The Football League upheld the geographic rule until 1975, when UEFA pressured the League to drop it or face sanctions. Everton that year, having come 4th, would have been excluded from the competition due to Liverpool's 2nd-place finish.

Ed.	Season	Champion	Runner-up	Score	Venue	City	Attend.
1	1955–58	Barcelona XI	London XI	2–2	Stamford Bridge	London	45,466
				6–0	Camp Nou	Barcelona	70,000
				8–2
2	1958–60	Barcelona	Birmingham City	0–0	St Andrew's	Birmingham	40,524
				4–1	Camp Nou	Barcelona	70,000
				4–1
3	1960–61	Roma	Birmingham City	2–2	St Andrew's	Birmingham	21,000
				2–0	Stadio Olimpico	Rome	60,000
				4–2
4	1961–62	Valencia	Barcelona	6–2	Mestalla Stadium	Valencia	65,000
				1–1	Camp Nou	Barcelona	60,000
				7–3
5	1962–63	Valencia	Dinamo Zagreb	2–1	Stadion Maksimir	Zagreb	40,000
				2–0	Mestalla Stadium	Valencia	55,000
				4–1
6	1963–64	Real Zaragoza	Valencia	2–1	Camp Nou	Barcelona	50,000
7	1964–65	Ferencváros	Juventus	1–0	Stadio Comunale	Turin	40,000
8	1965–66	Barcelona	Real Zaragoza	0–1	Camp Nou	Barcelona	50,000
				4–2 (a.e.t.)	La Romareda	Zaragoza	33,000
				4–3
9	1966–67	Dinamo Zagreb	Leeds United	2–0	Stadion Maksimir	Zagreb	32,000
				0–0	Elland Road	Leeds	35,604
				2–0
10	1967–68	Leeds United	Ferencváros	1–0	Elland Road	Leeds	25,268
				0–0	Népstadion	Budapest	76,000
				1–0
11	1968–69	Newcastle United	Újpesti Dózsa	3–0	St James' Park	Newcastle	60,000
				3–2	Megyeri út	Budapest	37,000
				6–2
12	1969–70	Arsenal	Anderlecht	1–3	Constant Vanden Stock	Anderlecht	37,000
				3–0	Highbury	London	51,612
				4–3
13	1970–71	Leeds United	Juventus	2–2	Stadio Comunale	Turin	58,555
				1–1	Elland Road	Leeds	42,483
				3–3	Leeds United won on away goals.

Notes