UEFA insist Chelsea and Benfica deserve to be playing in the Europa League Final, even though they both failed in the Champions League.
This is the 14th season that teams have been dropped into the second‑tier competition and whoever wins tonight will become the sixth side to claim the trophy after being ‘relegated’.
Chelsea and Benfica have played only eight matches to get to the final while last year’s winners, Atletico Madrid, had to go through 18 games to reach the showpiece match.
But a UEFA spokesman said: “The final will be the ninth match for both of these sides in the tournament since February so they have had to work hard in the competition to get to this stage.”
Chelsea and Benfica bring the tally of Champions League teams to have made the Europa League Final up to 13 but UEFA believe the reputation of the tournament has not been tarnished.
The spokesman added: “Regarding the ‘fairness’ of teams eliminated in the UEFA Champions League joining in the knockout stage, in the previous 13 seasons since this has been the case, on eight occasions the overall winner has been a team that was in the UEFA Europa League (or earlier the UEFA Cup) from the start.”
