The format of the competition had changed from previous seasons, replacing that from the previous one after the abolition of the Cup Winners' Cup in 1999; an extra qualifying round was introduced, as was a group phase after the first round.

The tournament was won by CSKA Moscow, coming from behind in the final against Sporting CP, in whose home stadium the match was played.

[2] Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the UEFA Cup, as noted below: The following was the access list for this season.

[3] Due to the UEFA Cup title holder (Valencia) qualifying for the Champions League via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made: Due to the failure of any club from Kazakhstan to obtain a UEFA licence, the following changes to the access list were made: The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[4] The schedule of the competition was as follows.

Based on paragraph 4.06 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, tiebreakers, if necessary, are applied in the following order:[1]