Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

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").[1]
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)

The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, sometimes referred to as the European Fairs Cup,^[2] Fairs Cities' Cup,^[3][4] or simply as the Fairs Cup, was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. 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.

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.^[5]

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.^[6][7] 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."^[6][7] 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.^[8][9]