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The UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (also known as the European Cup, UCL, CE1, C1[1] or CL) is a seasonal club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 1955 for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs" Cup, is considered the most prestigious club trophy in the sport.
The UEFA Champions League is separate from the less prestigious UEFA Cup and the defunct Cup Winners" Cup.
The tournament consists of several stages and begins with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. The sixteen teams emerging from the preliminary rounds take part in the final knock-out stage, which starts in late February and ends with the final match in May. The current holders of the UEFA Champions League trophy are A.C. Milan, who beat Liverpool F.C. 2-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece on 23 May 2007. Moscow will host its first European Cup final for the 2007-08 season The winning club gets possession of the trophy at the awards ceremony, but must return it to UEFA headquarters two months before the following year"s final. UEFA gives the winners a scaled-down replica of the trophy to keep permanently, and winning clubs are free to make replicas of the trophy as long as they are clearly marked as replicas and are no larger than 80% of the size of the actual trophy. However, the current competition rules also specify that the actual trophy will be permanently awarded to a team that wins three consecutive years or five times in all.
The 2008 UEFA Champions League Final will take place on 21 May 2008 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Moscow has never staged a European Cup final before, making this the most easterly final in the tournament"s history .
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