During the coronation of King Charles III which took place yesterday in the Abbey, various chants were heard. Between them the Byzantine chant heard in Greek. Football fans, however, may have also heard a more…familiar one that resembled the Champions League anthem.

But what did the Champions League anthem want? at the coronation of the King;

Of course, what was heard was not the Champions League anthem but the British anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’, composed by George Frideric Handel for the coronation of King George II in 1727.

Since then, it has been played at the coronation of every British monarch and has been recognized as the British patriotic anthem.

But where does the Champions League get stuck?

In 1992 the English composer Tony Britten composed the Champions League anthem based on the hymn ‘Zadok the Priest’.

In an interview in 2013, Britten stated that “I was approached by an advertising agency to write something like an anthem and as it was shortly after the Three Tenors at the World Cup in Italy and classical music was prevailing. Hooliganism was a big, major problem and UEFA wanted to take the game into a completely different area. There is a string part which I ‘plucked’ from Handel and then wrote my own melody. It has a kind of Handelian feel to it, but I like to think it’s not a complete copy.”