The final was held at Wembley Stadium in London on 28 May 2011,[1] where Barcelona defeated Manchester United 3–1.

Associations were allocated places according to their 2009 UEFA country coefficient, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2004–05 to 2008–09.

To compensate:[4] The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[5] All draws held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland unless stated otherwise.

Prior to these draws, UEFA could form "groups" in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee, but they were purely for convenience of the draw and did not resemble any real groupings in the sense of the competition, while ensuring that teams from the same association were not drawn against each other.

The draws for the first two qualifying rounds were held on 21 June 2010 by UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino and Michael Heselschwerdt, Head of Club Competitions,[8][9] while the draw for the third qualifying round was held on 16 July 2010 by UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino and Giorgio Marchetti, Competitions Director.

However, the first match of the entire competition (FC Santa Coloma v Birkirkara on 29 June) was cancelled due to the pitch being declared unfit.

The losing teams in both sections entered the play-off round of the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League.

The losing teams in both sections entered the group stage of the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League.

If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings (in descending order):[3] Bursaspor, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Braga, Tottenham Hotspur, Twente and Žilina all made their debuts in the group stage.

The 2011 UEFA Champions League Final was played on 28 May 2011 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

In addition, each club had the possibility of netting up to €4.8m in group stage performance bonuses (€800,000 for a win; €400,000 for a draw).

Manchester United FC, the runners-up, received a final match bonus of €5.6 million.

With €27.023m, Chelsea FC received the largest market pool share of all the clubs in the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League.