• The 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the programme due to the low popularity of football in the United States. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games. FIFA president Jules Rimet thus set about organising the inaugural World Cup tournament to be held in Uruguay in 1930.

• The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total 13 nations took part — seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.

• The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously, and were won by France and the USA, who beat Mexico 4-1 and Belgium 3-0, respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and became the first nation to win a World Cup.

• The Champions Cup's first hat-trick was scored by Péter Palotás of Budapesti Vörös Lobogó SE against R.S.C. Anderlecht on September 7, 1955, in the second match ever played in the competition. [2]
• Francisco Gento is the only player to be on 6 Champions Cup-winning sides.
• Bob Paisley is the only man to coach 3 Champions Cup-winning sides in 1977, 1978 and 1981 (all Liverpool).
• Marcello Lippi is the only man to coach 4 Champions finals in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2003 (all Juventus).
• Clarence Seedorf is the only player to win the Champions Cup with 3 different teams:

• The city of Milan, Italy, is the only one that won the Champions Cup with two different teams: Inter & Milan (the two clubs have won 9 cups in total).
• Many clubs won the Cup unbeaten: Internazionale (1964), Ajax Amsterdam (1972), Liverpool (1984) have the best record, 7 wins and 2 draws and Barcelona (2006) has the record of 9 wins and 4 draws, whilst Manchester United F.C. have a record of 5 wins and 6 draws (1999). Ajax, Liverpool and A.C. Milan are the only teams to have won the trophy unbeaten twice.
• Real Madrid have the record number of consecutive participations in the Champions' Cup with 15, from 1955/56 to 1969/70.
• Only on two occasions has the Final of the Champions Cup/League involved two teams from the same country: Real Madrid vs Valencia (1999-2000) and A.C. Milan vs Juventus (2002/03).
• Only four derbies between teams of the same city have ever been played:

• Only four teams have completed the "treble" — win their domestic league championship, their primary domestic cup, and the Champions League/European Cup. These were (in order) Celtic, Ajax Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoven , Manchester United. Celtic managed this in 1966/67. In 1972 Ajax won the European Cup, their domestic league and cup. PSV did this in 1987/88. Manchester United won their treble during the 1998/99 season.
• Ajax Amsterdam was unbeaten in the Champions Cup/League for 20 matches from the whole of the 1994/95 tournament to the semifinal first leg in 1995-96, when they lost 0-1 to Panathinaikos in Amsterdam.
• The team to win the Champions League with the fewest games won was Manchester United in 1998-99, managing just 5 victories in the entire tournament.
• The 2002/03 semi-final between bitter city rivals A.C. Milan and Internazionale was the first time both games of a two-legged tie were in the same stadium (San Siro). This was repeated in the 2004/05 quarter final.
• Only two individuals have won the Champions League with the same club as a player then later as a coach. Miguel Muñoz of Real Madrid did it as a player in 1955/56 and 1956/57, before winning as a coach in 1959/60 and 1965/66. Carlo Ancelotti did it as an A.C. Milan player in 1988/89 and 1989/90 before coaching them to victory in 2002/03.
• Cesare Maldini and his son Paolo are the only father and son duo to skipper the same club to victory in the competition. Cesare led A.C. Milan to victory in 1962/63, and Paolo captained them to victory in 2002/03.
• Ottmar Hitzfeld and Ernst Happel are the only coaches to win the title with two different clubs. Hitzfeld did so with Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern Munich in 2001; Happel led Feijenoord (now Feyenoord) in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983.
• Olympique de Marseille were the first winners of the new format UEFA Champions League in 1993.
• Manchester United's treble-winners of 1998/99 were the first winners of the tournament to have won neither their domestic title nor the European Cup/Champions League the previous season.
• Nottingham Forest are the only club to have won the European Cup more times (twice) than they have won their domestic league (once). Forest won the English League in 1978 before winning the European Cup in 1979 and defending it in 1980.
• Paolo Maldini of AC Milan scored the fastest ever goal in a Champions League final in 2005 in the final against Liverpool inside 53 seconds. He was also the oldest (37 year old) to score in a Champions League final.
• Juventus, Ajax Amsterdam, and Bayern Munich are the only teams to have won the three major UEFA official Cups, namely UEFA Champions League/European Cup, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup. The Inter-City Fairs Cup is not a major UEFA official competition since it was not organized or sanctioned by UEFA. Hence successes in the Fairs Cup cannot be considered from a formal viewpoint.
• Juventus is the only team in Europe to win all UEFA's Official Championships (the European Intertoto Cup of 1962 and European SuperCup of 1971 in AFC Ajax's palmares are not considered official trophies by U.E.F.A and FC Bayern Munich never has won the UEFA SuperCup).
• Liverpool Football Club and FC Artmedia Bratislava were the first two teams to negotiate all three rounds of qualification and reach the Champions League group phase, both doing so in 2005-06. Liverpool went on to become the first team ever to reach the knockout phase from the first qualifying round.
• The number of teams permitted to wear UEFA's special badge of honour is now five. The badge is awarded in perpetuity to teams that have either won the competition a total of five times, or have won it three years in succession.

• Five players have scored a hat-trick on their debut in the Champions League

• Seven players have scored 4 goals in one Champions League match

• The fastest ever Champions League goal was scored by Arsenal's Gilberto Silva in 20.07 seconds against PSV Eindhoven in 2002.
• Only four players have made 100 champions league appearances:

• Arsenal F.C. broke the record for the most consecutive clean sheets in 2006, with ten. They went without conceding a goal for 995 minutes.
• Jens Lehmann became the first player to ever be sent off in a Champions League final in 2006, this however also meant no player scored against him in the entire competition.