The final was played over two legs at Portman Road, Ipswich, England, and at the Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

It was won by Ipswich Town of England, who defeated AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands by an aggregate result of 5–4 to claim their only UEFA Cup title.

This was the only European title for Ipswich Town, who never made it past a quarterfinal round before, and would never go beyond the third round in future competitions.

As of 2024, this has been the only appearance in a major European final for both teams, which was also the case with the finalists of the European Cup Winners' Cup that season.

Both are the only current instances in a major UEFA tournament; it has also happened with the finalists of the 1968–69 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which is considered an unofficial tournament by UEFA.

According to a UEFA decision in 1979, the UEFA ranking was introduced to serve as the method to determine the number of competing teams per country, and the Fairs Cup entry criteria was finally abolished.

For the first time, an association ranking based on the newly introduced UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association: For the 1980–81 UEFA Cup, the associations are allocated places according to their 1979 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1974–75 to 1978–79.

AZ Alkmaar won 10–0 on aggregate.

FC Bohemians Praha won 4–3 on aggregate.

1–1 on aggregate; Levski Sofia won on away goals.

Beroe Stara Zagora won 3–1 on aggregate.

1–1 on aggregate; Widzew Łódź won on away goals.

4–4 on aggregate; Widzew Łódź won 4–1 on penalties.

4–4 on aggregate; Sochaux won on away goals.