Marseille returned to the UEFA Champions League in 2025/26 after a second-place finish behind runaway champions Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 last season.
Les Phoceens last competed in the competition proper two seasons ago, although you’d have to go back to 2011/12 to find the last time they reached the knockout stages.
On that occasion, they emerged from a group featuring Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal, and knocked out Inter Milan before falling to Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals.
In the interim period, Marseille reached the 2018 Europa League final but fell to Diego Simeone and Atletico Madrid. A quarter of a century earlier, they had a far more enjoyable time in a showpiece European match.
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Have Marseille ever won the Champions League?
Marseille were crowned champions of Europe in 1993 when they won the continent’s top competition in the first season since it was rebranded as the Champions League.
UEFA’s new name for the European Cup was initially only applied to the group stage, which played the eight teams that progressed from the two-legged second round into two groups of four. At that stage, Marseille overcame Dinamo Bucharest 2-0 on aggregate.
Raymond Goethals’ side topped Group A by a point from Rangers, having drawn both their games against the Glasgow giants. That meant a final showdown in Munich with Group B winners AC Milan, the continent’s dominant force of the era after winning the European Cup in 1988/89 and 1989/90.
At the Olympiastadion, defender Basile Boli scored the only goal on the stroke of halftime, securing a famous 1-0 win to see Marseille lift the club’s only European title.
The victory avenged their painful defeat two years earlier in the 1991 final, where Marseille lost on penalties to Red Star Belgrade after a 0-0 draw.
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Marseille bribery scandal
Marseille’s success in the 1993 was tarnished by a bribery scandal that occurred six days before the Champions League final.
Prior to a Ligue 1 match at Valenciennes on May 20, Marseille president Bernard Tapie and general manager Jean-Pierre Bernes contacted Valenciennes players Jorge Burruchaga, Christope Roberty and Jaques Glassmann via their own midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie, who was a starter in the Champions League final.
The request, relayed by Eydelie, was for Valenciennes to underperform so Marseille could conserve energy for their showdown with Milan. Buirruchaga and Robert accepted a bribe but Glassmann refused.
During the match, which Marseille won 1-0 thanks to Alen Boksic’s first-half goal, Glassmann told his coach Boro Primorac and the referee Jean-Maire Veniel about the bribe. The victory secured a fifth consecutive Ligue 1 title for Marseille.
Veniel included Glassmann’s claims in his match report and the plot quickly unravelled. Robert told a Valenciennes magistrate about his role int he scandal two weeks after the match, while Eydelie admitted paying the bribe under questioning from police in June.
Marseille were stripped of their Ligue 1 title and relegated. UEFA elected not to do likewise so they remain winners of the 1992/93 Champions League. However, Marseille were not allowed to defend their European crown, or compete in the 1993 UEFA Super Cup or Intercontinental Cup, with Milan taking their place for both matches.
