The Investec Champions Cup turns 32 this year and it's the best club rugby tournament in the world. Three of the most talented leagues in the world sending eight of their top clubs to battle it out over the course of seven months and ending in Toulon, France in late May: It’s just the best.
The United Rugby Championship, Gallagher PREM and the dominant Top 14 will kickoff Round 1 on Oct. 16 across Europe and South Africa and every match is streaming on FloRugby and the FloSports app, including on connected TV.
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Across the 48 Pool Play matches, fans will get to watch some of the most historic clubs in the sport. And each of those clubs have their own interesting history and story.
Here are 24 awesome facts about the 24 clubs competing for the European title.
Pool 1: Leinster Rugby, Glasgow Warriors, Pau, Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers, Clermont
Leinster Rugby Actually Owns One Of Greatest Champions Cup Finals Comebacks Ever
Lost in the fog of recent Champions Cup disappointments filled with blowouts and lost leads, Leinster Rugby actually has one of the greatest comebacks ever in the competition. Down 16 points, 22-6, in 2011, Leinster scored 27 unanswered points as the legendary Johnny Sexton accounted for 28 alone.
Glasgow Warriors Are Trying To Become First Scottish Team To Make Final
The Glasgow Warriors were one game away from becoming just the second Scottish team to make the Champions Cup semifinals in April 2026. One of the most talented teams in the URC and a dangerous team in the ICC field, they are Scotland’s only chance this year to make history and reach the Final for the first time.
Pau’s Rugby Roots Go Back to a Pre-Rugby Game Called Barette
Section Paloise's own history traces its origins to the physical-education movement of physician Philippe Tissié and the Ligue Girondine, where a running-and-ball game called barette, described by the club as an ancestor of rugby, was prominent. Section Paloise de la Ligue Girondine emerged in 1902; the club shortened its name in 1905 and did not permanently adopt its now-famous green and white colors until 1912.
Sale May Possess Rugby’s Oldest Surviving Rule Book
Sale Sharks traces its founding to 1861, making it the oldest rugby union club currently in England’s top professional league. More remarkably, Sale’s archives include an 1865 minute book containing 10 playing rules that the club says is believed to be the oldest existing rugby rule book in the world. The document comes from an era before the Rugby Football Union itself was founded in 1871.
Bonus Fun Fact: Sale’s “Sharks” identity is not a Victorian tradition despite the club’s 1861 roots.
- The team adopted the Sale Sharks name in 1999, after rugby union had entered the professional era. That means roughly 138 years of Sale rugby preceded the shark branding that now defines the club’s modern identity.
The First Club Ever to Retain Europe’s Biggest Trophy? Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers defeated Stade Français 34-30 in the 2001 European Cup final and Munster 15-9 in 2002. The second victory made Leicester the first club in tournament history to successfully defend the European Cup. Leinster became only the second side to accomplish it, a decade later in 2012.
Bonus fun fact— not fun for Munster: European Rugby’s Infamous “Hand of Back”
- The closing moments of Leicester’s 2002 final against Munster produced one of European rugby’s most notorious incidents. With Munster attacking from a scrum near Leicester’s line, Tigers flanker Neil Back appeared to knock the ball from scrum-half Peter Stringer’s hands. EPCR’s own historical account says neither referee nor touch judge spotted the infringement. Leicester held on 15-9 and retained the Cup.
Clermont Rugby Supporters Have Organized More Than 60 European Flights
Clermont's organized “Yellow Army” is unusually literal. The club says its Interclubs umbrella organization brings together 22 supporters’ clubs and roughly 3,000 members. Among its travel operations, the group has organized more than 60 airplanes departing Clermont for European matches, alongside buses, trains, tifos and enormous supporter marches.
Pool 2: Toulouse, 10Bet Lions, Saracens, La Rochelle, Exeter Chiefs, Connacht
Toulouse Has Won The Most. They Also Won The First
European club rugby’s championship story begins with Toulouse. On January 7, 1996, Stade Toulousain beat Cardiff 21-18 after extra time to win the inaugural European Cup. Toulouse has since pushed its total to a record six titles, but the first remains uniquely important: no club can ever replace Toulouse as Europe’s original champion. One more win and they’ll have seven cups total, three more than anyone else.
The Lions Are Investec Champions Cup Rookies in 2026–27
Unlike the decorated European powers around them in Pool Two, Johannesburg’s 10Bet Lions enter the 2026–27 Champions Cup as competition newcomers. That puts a first-time Champions Cup participant in a pool with six-time champion Toulouse, three-time champion Saracens, two-time champion La Rochelle and 2020 winner Exeter.
Saracens’ Dynasty Days: Three European Titles in Four Seasons
Saracens F.C. won the Champions Cup in 2016, 2017 and 2019, giving the club three European championships in four tournaments. The first of those came in a 21-9 final against Racing 92; Clermont was beaten in 2017 and Leinster in 2019. Saracens also paired the 2016 European crown with the Premiership championship, becoming the first English club since 2004 to complete that double. Just don’t ask Saracens how much everything cost back in those days.
La Rochelle’s First Major Trophy Was the Champions Cup
Stade Rochelais reached its first Champions Cup final in 2021 and lost to Toulouse. Just one year later, the club beat Leinster 24-21 to win the 2022 Champions Cup—and La Rochelle’s own history describes it as the club’s first major title. That is a remarkable way to open a top-level trophy cabinet: not with a domestic cup, but by becoming champion of Europe.
Bonus Fun Fact: Down 17-0, European Champion Anyway
- The next year, 12 minutes into the 2023 Champions Cup final, Leinster had raced to a 17-0 lead over La Rochelle. The French club nevertheless recovered to win 27-26, with Georges-Henri Colombe’s 71st-minute try supplying the decisive score. EPCR described the 17-point recovery as the largest comeback in Champions Cup final history at that point.
Exeter Chiefs: Second Tier to Kings of Europe in 10 Years
Exeter Chiefs won promotion to England’s Premiership in 2010. Exactly a decade later, the Chiefs beat Racing 92 31-27 to win their first Champions Cup. Exeter’s own history summarizes the transformation starkly: in ten years the club had gone from England’s second tier to “Kings of Europe.”
Supporters Helped Save Connacht From Being Shut Down
In 2003, the IRFU advanced plans that would have effectively ended Connacht Rugby's professional rugby operation. The backlash was extraordinary: contemporary reporting recorded up to 2,000 people marching on IRFU headquarters in Dublin, an unprecedented regional resistance for sports. By the end of January, the IRFU said it would not proceed with the shutdown.
Pool 3: Union Bordeaux Begles, DHL Stormers, Racing 92, Munster Rugby, Bristol Bears, Gloucester
Union Bordeaux Begles Won Back-to-Back European Championships Only 20 Years After the Merger
Union Bordeaux Begles did not exist in its present form until 2006, when Stade Bordelais and CA Bordeaux-Bègles Gironde combined their professional rugby projects. The merger joined traditions that collectively accounted for nine French championships. The “Union Bordeaux Bègles” name arrived in 2008. Less than two decades later, the merged club was competing at—and then dominating—the highest level of European rugby.
How high? UBB enters 2026–27 as the back-to-back Champions Cup winner. In the 2026 Bilbao final, UBB overwhelmed Leinster 41-19, having led an extraordinary 35-7 at halftime. Louis Bielle-Biarrey was subsequently named EPCR’s 2026 Investec Player of the Year after helping Bordeaux to that second crown. LBB is our No. 1 player in the world.
DHL Stormers Once Had An 84-Minute Try and a Kick After the Hooter
The DHL Stormers Rugby’s 2022 URC semifinal against Ulster looked lost. Reduced to 14 men, they still trailed by five deep into stoppage time. Warrick Gelant scored in the 84th minute, tying the match, and Manie Libbok then kicked the touchline conversion after the final hooter for a 17-15 win. That victory sent the Stormers to the final they would win a week later. No other South African clubs has won a European domestic league championship since.
Racing Won the First French Rugby Championship ... in 1892. See What They Did There?
On March 20, 1892, Racing 92 defeated fellow Paris club Stade Français 4-3 to win the first French rugby championship. Racing still explicitly identifies itself as France’s first rugby champion, and a modern home jersey was designed as a replica tribute to that inaugural championship strip. Also, it’s why they are called Racing “92.”
Munster Rugby Once Beat The All Blacks
On October 31, 1978, Munster Rugby defeated touring New Zealand 12-0 at Thomond Park. Munster’s archives describe it as the first—and at that time only—victory by an Irish side over an All Blacks touring team. The achievement became so embedded in Irish rugby culture that it inspired John Breen’s celebrated stage play “Alone It Stands.”
Bonus Fun Fact: ‘The Miracle Match’ Required an Exact Scoreline—and Munster Hit It
- Entering its final 2002–03 European pool match against Gloucester, Munster needed an almost absurdly specific outcome: four tries and victory by at least 27 points to advance. Munster won 33-6—exactly a 27-point margin—with the required four tries. The game became so famous that a commercial video was released under the title The Miracle Match.
Bristol’s European Cup Ended a 37-Year Major-Trophy Drought
Bristol Bears's 2020 Challenge Cup final against RC Toulonnais could scarcely have started faster. Scrum-half Harry Randall scored after roughly 15 seconds, helping launch Bristol toward a 32-19 victory. The win secured the club’s first European trophy. The win over Toulon in 2020 was more than the club’s first European title. It was Bristol’s first major trophy since 1983, ending a 37-year wait. That trophy arrived only two years after another major identity change for the organization, when the club officially became the Bristol “Bears.”
Gloucester Turned Its Most Famous Stand Into a Brutal Fitness Challenge
For 2026 preseason, Gloucester Rugby created a “Shed Challenge” inspired by Kingsholm’s famously vocal Shed terrace. Competitors had to push a 105-kilogram sled for 105 meters, work a tractor tire and carry three sandbags up and down every staircase in the stand. Gloucester said the fastest performers would be recorded on a plaque.
Pool 4: Northampton Saints, Bath, Cardiff, MHR, SFP, Vodacom Bulls
The Northampton Saints Were Started to Keep Local Lads Out of Trouble
Northampton Saints' origin story begins not with wealthy patrons or a factory team but with Rev. Samuel Wathen Wigg, curate of St. James Church. In 1880 he helped establish a rugby club as an outlet for the area’s “high-spirited” young men—part of a church-led effort to direct their energy constructively and keep them away from street trouble. The club was initially known as Northampton St James.
Bonus Fun Fact: The First Saints Changed in a Cow Shed
- Northampton’s official historical material says members of the fledgling St. James side played in local fields and hung their coats in a cow shed. The club’s first 1880 colors were red shirts with black shorts—long before the modern black, green and gold identity. Today Franklin’s Gardens, the Saints’ home since the late 1880s, sits roughly a mile from Northampton town center.
Bath Rugby Became the First British Club to Win Europe
On January 31, 1998, Bath Rugby beat defending champion Brive 19-18 to become the first British club to win the European Cup. Bath’s about 7,000 supporters traveled to Bordeaux for the final. That championship remains one of the defining achievements of Bath’s golden era.
Cardiff's Arms Park Hosted Rugby’s First Floodlit Match
Night games are fundamental to modern sports television; Cardiff Rugby can trace rugby’s floodlit era back to its own ground. Cardiff Arms Park’s history includes a technological landmark. Cardiff states that the venue staged the world’s first floodlit rugby match in October 1966, when Cardiff defeated the Barbarians 12-8. The modern Arms Park remains directly beside the much larger Principality Stadium in central Cardiff.
Bonus Fun Fact: Cardiff Has Supplied More British & Irish Lions Than Any Other Club
- Cardiff’s official 2025 historical material states that the club has supplied more British & Irish Lions players than any other club. For an organization with generations of Welsh internationals, that makes its contribution to one of rugby’s most selective touring institutions a particularly powerful measure of pedigree.
Montpellier Wins the Challenge Cup Like Clockwork: Every Five Years
Montpellier Herault Rugby's three Challenge Cup championships arrived in 2016, 2021 and 2026. That means the club has won the competition at exact five-year intervals—a pattern derived directly from EPCR’s title 29 records and Montpellier’s 2026 championship announcement. The latest win, over Ulster at San Mamés in Bilbao, put MHR into the 2026–27 Champions Cup field.
Both Clubs That Beat SFP in European Finals Are in This Field
Stade Francais has reached two European Cup finals and lost both: 34-30 to Leicester in 2001 and 18-12 after extra time to Toulouse in 2005. Both of those champions are back in the 2026–27 Champions Cup field. Stade Français’ own honors page records the two runner-up finishes, while EPCR’s winners archive supplies the scores.
The Vodacom Bulls’ Light Blue Identity Comes From a 1938 Breakaway
The Vodacom Bulls Rugby trace their roots to 1938, when Northern Transvaal became independent from the Transvaal rugby structure. The new union adopted the distinctive light-blue identity that evolved into the Blue Bulls/Bulls brand, with the Barberton Daisy also becoming part of its symbolism. The organization’s history records its first Currie Cup championship in 1946.
Pool 1
- Leinster Rugby
- Glasgow Warriors
- Section Paloise
- Sale Sharks
- Leicester Tigers
- ASM Clermont Auvergne
Pool 2
- Stade Toulousain
- Lions
- Saracens
- Stade Rochelais
- Exeter Chiefs
- Connacht Rugby
Pool 3
- Union Bordeaux Bègles
- DHL Stormers
- Racing 92
- Munster Rugby
- Bristol Bears
- Gloucester Rugby
Pool 4
- Northampton Saints
- Bath Rugby
- Cardiff Rugby
- Montpellier Hérault Rugby
- Stade Français Paris
- Vodacom Bulls
When Is The Investec Champions Cup?
Round 1 of the Champions Cup starts on October 16, and continues into 2027. The playoffs start in April 2027, before the Final takes place in OL Stadium on May 22, 2027.
Investec Champions Cup is streaming live to audiences in the US exclusively on FloRugby.
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