[1][2] The final was won by Italian club Inter Milan, who beat German side Bayern Munich 2–0.

Inter Milan went on to represent Europe in the 2010 FIFA Club World Cup, beating Congolese side TP Mazembe 3–0 in the final, and played in the 2010 UEFA Super Cup against Europa League winners Atlético Madrid, losing 2–0.

Associations were allocated places according to their 2008 UEFA country coefficient, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2003–04 to 2007–08.

To compensate:[7] The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[8] All draws held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland unless stated otherwise.

Partizan's 8–0 win over Rhyl in the second leg equalled the record for the largest margin of victory in the current Champions League format.

As of November 2009[update], the second leg between Stabæk and Tirana was under investigation by UEFA and German authorities for possible match-fixing.

The losing teams in both sections entered the play-off round of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League.

The losing teams in both sections entered the group stage of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League.

The top two in each group advanced to the knockout phase, and the third-placed teams entered the round of 32 of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League.

Based on Article 7.06 in the UEFA regulations, if two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings:[6] AZ, VfL Wolfsburg, Standard Liège, Zürich, APOEL, Rubin Kazan, Unirea Urziceni and Debrecen all made their debuts in the group stage.

On 18 April, UEFA issued a statement that the matches would go ahead and that the teams would have to make alternate travel arrangements.