Heineken Cup 1995–1999 The Heineken Cup was launched in the summer of 1995 on the initiative of the then Five Nations Committee to provide a new level of professional cross border competition. Twelve sides representing Ireland, Wales, Italy, Romania and France competed in four pools of three with the group winners going directly into the semi-finals. English and Scottish teams did not take part in the inaugural competition. From an inauspicious beginning in Romania, where
Toulouse defeated
Farul Constanţa 54–10 in front of a small crowd, the competition gathered momentum and crowds grew. Toulouse went on to become the first European cup winners, eventually beating
Cardiff in extra time in front of a crowd of 21,800 at Cardiff Arms Park. European rugby was further expanded with the advent of the
European Challenge Cup for teams that did not qualify for the Heineken Cup. The Heineken Cup now had 20 teams divided into four pools of five. Only Leicester and Brive reached the knock-out stages with 100 per cent records and ultimately made it to the final, Cardiff and Toulouse falling in the semi-finals. After 46 matches,
Brive beat Leicester 28–9 in front of a crowd of 41,664 at
Cardiff Arms Park, the match watched by an estimated television audience of 35 million in 86 countries. The five pools of four teams, which guaranteed each team a minimum of six games, and the three quarter-final play-off matches all added up to a 70-match tournament. Brive reached the final again but were beaten late in the game by
Bath with a penalty kick. Ironically, English clubs had decided to withdraw from the competition in a dispute over the way it was run.
Fabien Galthié's Paris side led until two minutes from the end of normal time before
Frédéric Michalak levelled the contest for Toulouse with his first penalty strike. He repeated this in the initial stages of extra time and then sealed his side's success with a superb opportunist drop-goal. Toulouse became the first team to win three Heineken Cup titles. It was third time lucky for the Irish provincial side, who had previously been denied the ultimate prize twice by Northampton and
Leicester in finals, in addition to a series of tight semi-final losses. Munster's history of heartbreaking near misses, large away followings and their enduring close connection to the tournament provided much of the romantic narrative of the early years of the competition. celebrate after winning the
2006–07 Heineken Cup. The 2006–07 Heineken Cup would be distributed to over 100 countries following Pitch International's securing of the rights. That season was the first time in the history of the competition that two teams went unbeaten in pool play, with both
Llanelli Scarlets and Biarritz doing so. Biarritz went into their final match at Northampton Saints with a chance to become the first team ever to score bonus-point wins in all their pool matches, but were only able to score two of the four tries needed. Leicester defeated Llanelli Scarlets to move into the final at Twickenham, with the possibility of winning a Treble of championships on the cards, having already won the Anglo-Welsh Cup and the English Premiership. However, Wasps won the final 25 points to 9 in front of a tournament record 81,076 fans. During competition there was uncertainty over the future of the tournament after the 2006–07 season as French clubs had announced that they would not take part because of fixture congestion following the
Rugby World Cup and an ongoing dispute between English clubs and the RFU. It was speculated that league two teams might compete the next season, the RFU saying "If this situation is not resolved, the RFU owes it to the sport to keep this competition going...We have spoken to our FDR clubs, and if they want to compete we will support them.". A subsequent meeting led to the announcement that the tournament would be played in 2007–08, with clubs from all the six nations. On 20 May it was announced that both French and English top-tier teams would be competing In the 2008 final, Munster won the cup for their second time ever by beating
Toulouse at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Leinster won the title in
2009 in their first ever final after beating Munster in the semi-final in front of a then world record Rugby Union club match attendance in
Croke Park. They beat the Leicester Tigers in the final at
Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. They also beat
Harlequins 6–5 in the quarter-finals at
Twickenham Stoop, in the famous
Bloodgate scandal. In the 2010 final,
Toulouse defeated
Biarritz Olympique in the
Stade de France to claim their fourth title, a Heineken Cup record. The 16th Heineken Cup tournament in 2011 resulted in an Irish province lifting the title for the fourth time in six years as
Leinster recorded their second triumph in the competition. They defeated former multiple Heineken Cup winners
Leicester and Toulouse in the quarter- and semi-finals. At the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, in front of 72,000 spectators,
Leinster fought back from a 22–6 half-time deficit in the final against
Northampton Saints, scoring 27 unanswered points in 26 second-half minutes, winning 33–22 in one of the tournament's greatest comebacks.
Johnny Sexton won the man-of-the-match award, having scored 28 of Leinster's points total, which included two
tries, three
conversions, and four
penalties. Leinster successfully defended their crown in 2012 at Twickenham, eclipsing fellow Irish province and former champions Ulster 42–14 to establish the highest Heineken Cup final winning margin. The performance broke a number of Heineken Cup Final records. Leinster became only the second team to win back-to-back titles, and the only team ever to win three championships in four years. In addition, the game had the highest attendance at a final (81,774), the highest number of tries (5) and points (42) scored by one team and the highest points difference (28). The
final edition of the tournament as constituted as the Heineken Cup was won for a second time by
Toulon at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in May 2014.
Champions Cup 2014–18 The tournament began on 17 October 2014, with Harlequins playing Castres Olympique in the first ever Champions Cup game. Toulon retained their title, beating
Clermont 24–18 in a repeat of the
2013 Heineken Cup Final, thereby becoming the first club to win three European titles in a row. Following the
November 2015 Paris attacks, all Round 1 games due to take place in France that weekend were called off, along with the Round 2 fixture between
Stade Français and
Munster. Rescheduling of some matches was difficult, partly caused by fixture congestion due to the
2015 Rugby World Cup.
Saracens won their first title defeating Racing 92 in Lyon 21–9 in 2016 final and followed it up with their second in 2017, beating
Clermont 28–17 in Edinburgh. In 2017–18 season,
Leinster overcame the "pool of death" consisting of Glasgow Warriors (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the Pro14), Montpellier (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the TOP 14) and Exeter (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the English Premiership), beating all three teams both home and away. Leinster went on to face the back to back Champions
Saracens, dispatching a defeat at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, to set up a semi-final against reigning Pro12 champions Scarlets. Leinster defeated Scarlets to face Racing 92 in Champions Cup Final in Bilbao.
Leinster defeated Racing 92 by a scoreline of 15–12, becoming only the second team in history to earn four European titles.
Leinster also won the Pro14 title to become the first Pro14 side to win the domestic-European 'Double'.
Heineken Champions Cup 2018–2020 Saracens won the 2018–19 competition, defeating defending champions
Leinster 20–10 in the final. Saracens were in breach of the Premiership salary cap during this edition and the previous year, in which they qualified for the 2018–19 cup. However, the EPCR have confirmed that Premiership ruling will not affect the results of the Heineken Champions Cup for 2018–19 or previous years, stating: "The Saracens decision is based on Gallagher Premiership Rugby regulations and does not affect the club's European record or current status in the Heineken Champions Cup." There were no Saracens representatives at the launch of the 2019–20 competition, held in Cardiff on 6 November 2019. EPCR released a statement saying they were "disappointed to learn of Saracens' decision to make their club representatives unavailable for today's official 2019–20 season launch".
2020–2023 Because of the
COVID-19 pandemic the
2020–21 competition took on a revised format based on a hybrid of the
round-robin and
Swiss systems. A similar, but revised 24 team format took place for
2021–22 and
2022-23.
Investec Champions Cup On 31 August 2023,
Investec, a bank and wealth management company with operations in South Africa and Europe, and the European Professional Club Rugby announced Investec would take over as title sponsor of the competition. The tournament moved away from the COVID-19 influenced hybrid system back toward a more straightforward, if still modified, round-robin pool format, while retaining the balance of four pool matches and four knock-out weekends. ==Format==