UEFA Champions League Anthem

UEFA Champions League Anthem

Official anthem of UEFA Champions League
Also known as	Champions League
Lyrics	Tony Britten, 1992
Music	Tony Britten, 1992
Adopted	1992
Audio sample
The UEFA Champions League Anthem file help

The UEFA Champions League Anthem, officially titled simply as "Champions League", is the official anthem of the UEFA Champions League, written by English composer Tony Britten in 1992.

In 1992, UEFA commissioned Tony Britten to arrange an anthem for the UEFA Champions League which commenced in August 1992. He composed a 'serious' classical piece, in a style similar to some of George Frideric Händel's works. The composition is heavily influenced by Händel's Zadok the Priest. Tony Britten acknowledged that "there's a rising string phase which I pinched from Handel and then I wrote my own tune. It has a kind of Handelian feel to it but I like to think it's not a total rip-off". For the recording used in television transmissions of UEFA Champions League matches and events, the piece was performed by London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and sung by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chorus. The chorus is in UEFA's three official languages: English, French, and German.

The anthem's chorus is played before each UEFA Champions League game, as well as at the beginning and end of television broadcasts of the matches. Special vocal versions have been performed live at the Champions League final with lyrics in other languages, changing over to the host country's language for the chorus. These versions were performed by Andrea Bocelli (Italian) (Rome 2009, Milan 2016 and Cardiff 2017), Juan Diego Flores (Spanish) (Madrid 2010), All Angels (Wembley 2011), Jonas Kaufmann and David Garrett (Munich 2012), Mariza (Lisbon 2014, unlike the previous final performers, Mariza sang the main lyric of the anthem), and Nina Maria Fischer and Manuel Gomez Ruiz (Berlin 2015). In 2013 final at Wembley Stadium, the chorus had played twice.