The 2000–01 UEFA Cup was the 30th edition of the UEFA Cup competition. Liverpool won the final with a golden goal in against Alavés for their third title in the competition. It completed a cup treble for the club, as they also won the FA Cup and the League Cup that season. The conclusion of the tournament by a golden goal is the only instance in any of the major European club cup competitions until the abolition of the rule in 2002. Galatasaray could not defend their title as they automatically qualified for the 2000–01 UEFA Champions League and also reached the knockout stage. English clubs had been banned from European competitions between 1985 and 1990 as a result of the Heysel disaster, and Liverpool were the first English side of the post-Heysel era to win the trophy. The previous English winners were Tottenham Hotspur in 1984. It was also Liverpool's first European trophy of the post-Heysel era.

Association team allocation

A total of 145 teams from 51 UEFA associations participated in the 2000–01 UEFA Cup. Associations are allocated places according to their 1999 UEFA league coefficient. Below is the qualification scheme for the 2000–01 UEFA Cup:

Association ranking

Distribution

Redistribution rules

A UEFA Cup place is vacated when a team qualify for both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, or qualify for the UEFA Cup by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

Qualifying round

First round

Second round

Final phase

In the final phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:

Bracket

Third round

Fourth round

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final