The Champions League Trophy: Why It Has Big Ears

The first trophy came from L’Équipe

The prize awarded at the first European Cup final in 1956 was donated by the French newspaper L’Équipe. It was a narrower silver cup with smaller handles than the object now seen at the Champions League final.

Real Madrid won the first five tournaments and a sixth in 1966. UEFA then allowed the club to retain that original cup. The decision created the need for a successor rather than merely a repair or rebrand.

The large-handled cup arrived in 1967

UEFA commissioned a new trophy from silversmith Jürg Stadelmann near its then headquarters in Bern. Stadelmann recalled combining preferences associated with several European countries into one design. The work took 340 hours.

Celtic became the first champion to lift the new design in 1967. Its exaggerated handles supplied the enduring “Old Big Ears” nickname.

Its inscription preserves the European Cup

The front reads Coupe des Clubs Champions Européens: European Champion Clubs’ Cup. That wording was not replaced when the competition became the UEFA Champions League in 1992/93.

The object therefore carries the tournament’s lineage in plain sight. Like the Europa League trophy, its physical continuity outlasted a commercial name change.

Five clubs kept an original

A former UEFA rule transferred the trophy to a club that won five times in total or three years consecutively. Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern, Milan and Liverpool obtained originals under versions of that policy.

Each transfer required another trophy to be made. UEFA describes the present object as the fifth version of the Stadelmann design, which is different from saying that the competition has had only five trophies in total.

UEFA now keeps the presentation cup

The keep-the-cup rule ended before the 2008/09 season. The original used at the final and approved official events remains UEFA property. The champion receives a full-size replica engraved with the club’s name.

That policy resembles Wimbledon’s protection of its Championship trophies: the winner possesses an authorised replica, while the institution preserves the historic original.

The measurements explain its presence

UEFA lists the trophy at 73.5cm tall and about 7.5kg. It is visually large but not UEFA’s heaviest major cup—the handleless Europa League trophy weighs about twice as much.

The important distinction is between ceremony and ownership. Players lift the original on the final night; the club’s permanent object is the replica. Photographs show possession of the prize at a moment, not a transfer of title to it.