The idea for the tournament was put forth by club officials of the three South American teams that had won the
Intercontinental Cup—
Peñarol,
Santos, and
Racing. In November 1968, the tournament was announced in
Buenos Aires. Earlier that year in September,
Estudiantes de La Plata had defeated
Manchester United in the
1968 Intercontinental Cup but would not be included in the immediate 1968 Intercontinental Supercup. Instead, Estudiantes would be present in the 1969 edition. The corresponding
UEFA officials were contacted and the tournament was scheduled to start in November and include
Real Madrid and
Inter in addition to the three past South American Intercontinental Cup winners. The first competition was divided into the South American Zone and the European Zone. In the South American Zone, the 3 South American participants played a
round-robin tournament, whilst in the European Zone, Real Madrid and Internazionale were to play each other over two legs. Each zone winner advanced to the final. Real Madrid withdrew from playing in the tournament and, thus, Inter advanced without playing. The first round of matches were played in November between the 3 South American clubs, and the second round of matches were played in April and May 1969. Santos finished ahead of Peñarol and Racing Club and were to play Inter in June for the cup. The first leg of the final was played in
Milan, at the
Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. Santos won 1–0. The second leg was to be played in September in
Naples,
Italy; however, Inter declined to play and Santos won by default. The second competition–now including Estudiantes–also failed to complete. Both Real Madrid and Inter declined to compete as the
1970 FIFA World Cup qualification was underway in Europe. Hence, only the South American Zone portion of the tournament was played, starting in November and culminating in December. Peñarol finished first and was declared the South American Zone champion after no European team was available to compete. A third edition was slated for 1970 by CONMEBOL with two new European teams being eligible to play–Italian
A.C. Milan and Dutch
Feyenoord; however it was never held because of the lack of European interest. The tournament was postponed three times into 1971 until it was finally cancelled. The tournament went unrecognised for many years until in September 2005, these titles were officially recognised by the CONMEBOL despite their improper conclusions. == Eligible teams ==