The Europa League trophy was stolen after being displayed at a publicity event in Mexico, only to be recovered a few hours later, authorities in the state of Guanajuato said on Saturday.
The trophy had been on display at the football stadium in the city of Leon on Friday night, only to be taken from a car after the event, AFP reported.
“We recovered the cup after receiving information that it had been stolen from the car transporting it,” said a post on the Twitter account of the Guanajuato public prosecutor, alongside a picture of the trophy in a case.
No other information was given about who took the trophy, where it was found or whether any perpetrators had been identified.
The event had been organized by one of European football governing body UEFA’s sponsors.
The UEFA Cup, also known as the Coupe UEFA, is the trophy awarded annually by UEFA to the football club that wins the UEFA Europa League. Before the 2009–10 season, both the competition and the trophy were known as ‘the UEFA Cup’.
Before the competition was renamed the UEFA Europa League in the 2009–10 season, the UEFA regulations stated that a club could keep the original trophy for a year before returning it to UEFA. After its return, the club could keep a four-fifths scale replica of the original trophy. Upon their third consecutive win or fifth win overall, a club could retain the trophy permanently.
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