The competition dates back to the 1993-94 season, when it succeeded the previous European Champions Cup as the premier continental tournament.
Prior to 2009-10, the competition concluded in a double-header final between the two top teams left in the tournament. Since 2009-10, the winner is decided at the EHF FINAL4 (currently the TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4), with the winners of the two semi-finals playing for the trophy. The EHF FINAL4 takes place at the LANXESS arena in Cologne.
Since the start of the 2020-21 season, 16 teams participate in the EHF Champions League, divided into two groups of eight. Under the current system, the winners of the domestic leagues in Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain, plus the runners-up in Germany, all receive a fixed place in the EHF Champions League. League winners from other nations, plus the runners-up to the teams with fixed places, may apply for upgrades.
In the group phase, all teams play each other both home and away, earning two points for a win and one point for a draw.
The top two teams in each group advance directly to the quarter-finals, while the teams ranked third to sixth in each group first advance to the play-offs. The winners of each of the four play-off pairings then progress to the quarter-finals. Both the play-off and quarter-finals are played as home and away fixtures.
The four quarter-final winners then advance to the EHF FINAL4.
EHF Champions League matches are broadcast live on EHFTV and on national and regional broadcasters across Europe and around the world. The official broadcasters showing each game can be viewed in the EHF's TV guide.
The current holders of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League are SC Magdeburg (Germany), who won their third trophy in 2025. The all-time record winners are Barça (Spain), who have won 11 titles since 1994, most recently in 2024.
Spaniard Carlos Ortega has won six titles as a player and two as a coach for Barça; his compatriot Andrei Xepkin won a total of seven titles, for Barça and for THW Kiel (Germany).
The all-time top scorer of the competition is Macedonian Kiril Lazarov, who scored 1,482 goals in the EHF Champions League.
