The UEFA Super Cup acts as the curtain-raiser for the new UEFA club competition season, pitting the winners of the previous term's UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League against each other.

For 14 years, the game was played in Monaco but is now staged in a different European city each year, as per the two major club finals. It takes place at the end of August directly following the draws for the group stages of the two club competitions.

The competition was first staged in 1973/74, and initially featured the European champions and their European Cup Winners' Cup counterparts. Since the last UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1998/99, the match has been contested by the holders of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League (the UEFA Cup until 2009/10).

Originally, the UEFA Super Cup was played over two legs (although there were exceptions), with the two finalists playing each other home and away. In 1998 the UEFA Super Cup switched to a single match played at Monaco's Stade Louis II and, after 14 years in Monte Carlo, is now hosted by a different ground each season. The Eden Stadium in Prague has the honour of holding the 2013 event, the first one since the departure from the principality.

Format
The match format is the same as any final in a UEFA club competition. If the scores are level at the end of normal time, two 15-minute periods of extra time are played. If the result remains deadlocked at the end of the second period of extra time, a penalty shoot-out determines the winners. A Super Cup has never been decided on penalties, but in 2000 it was determined by a golden goal, UEFA Cup winners Galatasaray AŞ defeating Real Madrid CF.