The Conference League is the third tier of UEFA club competitions behind the top-tier Champions League and the second-tier Europa League. The tournament was introduced ahead of the 2021/22 season, the first time that there had been three European tournaments since the discontinuation of the Cup Winners’ Cup back in 1999. The inaugural final was won by Roma, led by José Mourinho, beating Feyenoord 1-0. Much like the other European tournaments, this reverted from the group stage format to the league format for the 2024/25 season.
Unlike the Champions League and Europa League, the smaller national associations actually have more allocations than the bigger nations such as England and Spain in order to increase the quality of those higher tier tournaments and to increase participation in this competition. Chelsea entered the Conference League for the first time in 2024/25, reaching the final where they defeated Real Betis 4-1 at the Wrocław Stadium in Poland. In doing so they became the first, and to date only side, to secure a clean sweep of major UEFA European Club trophies.
| Season | Chelsea Result | Winner | Runner Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-2025 | Winner | Chelsea | Real Betis |
Chelsea Conference League Wins
2024-2025: Real Betis 1-4 Chelsea
Whilst no one associated with Chelsea will have been overly delighted that the club was involved in the Europa Conference League rather than the Champions League or even the Europa League, once they were in it there was a determination to go ahead and win the thing. The Blues finished top of the new-look league format in what would previously have been considered the group stage, winning all six of their matches. The first saw them win 4-2 over Belgian side Gent, then came a 4-1 win over the Greek team Panathinaikos and an 8-0 win over Noah that resulted in plenty of ‘ark’ jokes.
Match day four saw the Blues defeat 1. FC Heidenheim 2-0 in Germany, prior to a trip to Kazakhstan in order to register a 3-1 win against Astana. The final group game came at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea won 5-1 over Irish team Shamrock Rovers. By finishing top of the whole group, Chelsea went straight to the round of 16, beating Copenhagen 2-1 in the first-leg and 1-0 in the second. That set up a quarter-final tie against Legia Warsaw, which ended 3-0 in the first leg and a 2-1 loss in the second. It was Sweden’s Djurgårdens IF in the semi-final, which ended 4-1 in the first-leg and 1-0 in the return.
That set the Blues up with a final against Spanish side Real Betis at Wrocław Stadium in Poland. It was actually Betis that took the lead, scoring just nine minutes in when Abde Ezzalzouli got on the score sheet. The tie remained that way until 20 minutes into the second-half, at which point Enzo Fernández equalised prior to Nicolas Jackson putting the Blues in front. From there, it was all about killing the game off, which came courtesy of a goal from loanee Jadon Sancho in the 83rd minute. Moisés Caicedo made it 4-1 in the first minute of injury time, which is how the game finished.