Champions League is an annual soccer tournament played by FIFA ’s regional confederations. FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football). Soccer is called football or association football in much of the world. FIFA is soccer’s world governing body. The tournament determines the overall club champion of each confederation.
Professional soccer clubs compete in the Champions League tournaments of the Confederation of African Football, or Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF); the Asian Football Confederation (AFC); the Confederation of North America , Central America , and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF); the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC); and the Union of European Football Associations, or Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA). The annual club tournament in FIFA’s South American Football Confederation, or Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL), is called the Copa Libertadores (Liberators’ Cup) de América. The UEFA Champions League—considered the most prestigious of the competitions—dates from 1992. Before that, UEFA’s annual tournament was known as the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, or simply the European Cup, which was first played in 1955.
Only the top club teams of each confederation qualify to play in the Champions League. The winners of each Champions League tournament (plus the host country’s best club team) compete against each other in the annual FIFA Club World Cup. Teams from Europe and South America have dominated the Club World Cup since it began in 2000.
