It was won for the first time by Red Star Belgrade on penalties in the final against Marseille; both were first-time finalists.

This was only the second time that an Eastern European side had won the competition, after Steaua București of Romania in 1986.

Red Star won the tournament as the only Yugoslav club shortly before the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Milan refused to play on when floodlights were fixed and were banned, giving Marseille a 3–0 automatic win.

Ajax, the Dutch champions, were not allowed to participate in a European Cup competition because of the poor behaviour of their fans during a game the previous season, so their spot in the qualification was simply vacated, giving the two-time defending champions Milan a first-round bye.

Notes For the first and second round draws, teams were ranked according to their 1990 UEFA club seeding coefficients.

The match was abandoned in the 78th minute as per the decision by the match referee Emilio Soriano Aladrén due to Dynamo Dresden fans causing commotion in the stands and pelting the pitch with objects that landed in the vicinity of Red Star player Robert Prosinečki who was about to take a corner kick and the assistant referee on the sideline.

Following several minutes of unsuccessful attempts to calm the fans, the match referee ordered the teams off the pitch and the contest was never resumed.

The match was interrupted in injury time due to poor visibility after two of the four floodlights in the stadium failed.

When power was restored after 15 minutes, Milan director Adriano Galliani decided not to let his team go back on the pitch at which point the contest was abandoned permanently.

UEFA awarded a 3–0 win to Marseille and banned Milan for a year from European competition including suspending Galliani from all official club functions for two years.Marseille won 4–1 on aggregate.