The anthem of the Champions League sounding over stadiums of Europe concerns and forces to fight more often hearts of football players and fans. This beautiful music loads with energy of participants of the tournament and motivates to the victory. About origin of the anthem on different Internet resources there is the set of versions. In some sources the authorship is attributed to Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, but these opinions are wrong.
The history of the anthem of the Champions League of UEFA began in 1992 when the European football association made the Team Marketing companies - to the organizer of the tournament - the order for creation of the anthem: the powerful, majestic and solemn melody capable to inspire on fulfillments on the football field and to strengthen spirit of players. The advertizing agent of the English composer Tony Britten whom customers addressed offered many options at choice. As a result took the work by George Frederick Handel "Zadok priest" written in 1727 in honor of the crowning of the English king George II as the basis: the solemn choral chant on the biblical theme – accession to the throne of the tsar Solomon and his unction on reign by the priest Zadok.
Work on the anthem was continued 6 weeks during which Tony Britten made arrangement, the orchestration, painted parties of chorus. As a result from the initial work by Handel there was only the ascending string phrase right at the beginning where yet the chorus doesn't enter. All other parts of the anthem – pure inspiration of Britten, the aggregated chords, passages and the ideas of majestic music therefore he by right can be considered the author of the anthem of the Champions League.
On the string arpeggio of Handel Britten imposed the vocal line which though has no platitudes with Zadok priest, but is very characteristic of style of the classic composer. The anthem of the Champions League isn't direct transposition of the work of Handel, but despite this, Tony Britten is quite often accused of plagiarism. The anthem is executed in 3 languages: English, German and French. At first Britten outlined the main ideas in native English, then made several blocks of the text so that in everyone phrases in all 3 languages sounded. The anthem of the Champions League consists of 2 couplets and the refrain, and contents it is rather simple, but solemnly: "It is the best teams!", "Main event!", "Masters!", "Champions!". These short offers parry importance of the football tournament for participants and fans. Football players received the anthem very quickly as it sounded before each match, including final. And fans needed several seasons to get used to the melody. But 20 years later the anthem of the Champions League became not only recognizable and popular: today it is the integral part and the symbol of the competition for the cup of champions.