The 1998–99 UEFA Cup was won by Parma in the final against Marseille. It was their second title in the competition.
It was the last edition of the old format UEFA Cup, before the Cup Winners' Cup was merged into it to include domestic cup winners, and an extra knockout round was added. The new format was last played in the 2003–04 season and was later replaced by a Group Stage format in 2004–05.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[1]
TH: Title holders
LC: League Cup winners
Nth: League position
IC: Intertoto Cup winners
FP: Fair play
CL Q2: Losers from the Champions League second qualifying round
1 The first leg of the Fiorentina vs. Hajduk Split tie was played at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari instead of Fiorentina's home ground in Florence due to the club serving a stadium ban over an incident during their 1996–97 Cup Winners' Cup semifinal second leg match against Barcelona on 24 April 1997. The incident saw Barcelona player Iván de la Peña requiring medical assistance after getting hit with an object thrown from the stands as Fiorentina fans pelted the pitch with missiles following Barcelona's second goal in the 35th minute of the match.[2] Part of the punishment for Fiorentina was being required to play their next two European home matches at least 300 km away from their home stadium. Since Fiorentina failed to qualify for European competition in the 1997–98 season, the punishment was enacted during their 1998–99 UEFA Cup campaign.
1 The return leg of the Grasshopper vs. Fiorentina tie was played at the Arechi Stadium in Salerno instead of Fiorentina's home ground in Florence due to the club serving a stadium ban over an incident during their 1996–97 Cup Winners' Cup semifinal second leg match against Barcelona on 24 April 1997. The incident saw Barcelona player Iván de la Peña requiring medical assistance after getting hit with an object thrown from the stands as Fiorentina fans pelted the pitch with missiles following Barcelona's second goal in the 35th minute of the match.[2] Part of the punishment for Fiorentina was being required to play their next two European home matches at least 300 km away from their home stadium. Since Fiorentina failed to qualify for European competition in the 1997–98 season, the punishment was enacted during their 1998–99 UEFA Cup campaign.
The match was abandoned at half-time after the fourth official, Philippe Flament of Belgium, sustained a knee injury and bruising from a firecracker thrown onto the pitch by fans in the stands. At the moment of the incident, Fiorentina led 2–1 on the night and 4-1 on aggregate. Four days later at a UEFA emergency meeting, Fiorentina was kicked out of the UEFA Cup and the match was recorded as a 0–3 Grasshopper win. Future expulsion from European competition for Fiorentina was also considered by UEFA but eventually ruled out because of mitigating circumstances, specifically that the match, as part of an earlier punishment, was not played at Fiorentina's home stadium but in Salerno and credible evidence that the firecracker was likely thrown by fans of the local club Salernitana holding a grudge following a recent Serie A fixture between the two clubs.[2] Grasshopper won 3–2 on aggregate.
^"4. UEFA Cup Finals"(PDF). UEFA Europa League Statistics Handbook 2012/13. Nyon: Union of European Football Associations. 28 May 2013. p. 70. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 June 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
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