The final was played between Ajax and Manchester United at the Friends Arena in Solna, Sweden.

[4] With this victory, they became the fifth club – after Juventus, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Chelsea – to have won all three major European trophies (European Champion Clubs' Cup/UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League, and the now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup).

The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[6] The UEFA Executive Committee approved in December 2014 changes to the rewards given according to the Respect Fair Play ranking, and starting from the 2016–17 season, the three Fair Play berths were no longer allocated to the Europa League.

[9][10] Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below: In the default access list, Sevilla enter the third qualifying round (as the seventh-placed team of the 2015–16 La Liga).

When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules (regulations Articles 3.03 and 3.04):[6] The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[18][19][20] Notably two teams took part in the competition that were not playing in their national top division, Zürich (2nd tier) and Hibernian (2nd tier).

The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).

[41][6][42] Matches in the qualifying, play-off, and knockout rounds could also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.

Astana, Celta Vigo, Dundalk, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, Konyaspor, Mainz 05, Manchester United, Nice, Olympiacos, Osmanlıspor, Sassuolo, Southampton and Zorya Luhansk made their debut appearances in the UEFA Europa League group stage (although Celta Vigo and Olympiacos had appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage and Manchester United and Olympiacos had already competed in the UEFA Europa League knockout phase after a third place in the UEFA Champions League group stage).

In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

[65] The award winner was announced and presented to during the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League group stage draw in Monaco on 25 August 2017.