The Football Club Barcelona (in Catalan, Futbol Club Barcelona), popularly known as Barça, n. 1 is a sports center in Barcelona, Spain. It was founded as a football club on November 29, 1899. It is one of the four professional clubs in Spain next to Real Madrid Football Club, Athletic Club and Club Atlético Osasuna that is not a limited company, so that the ownership of the club rests in its partners.
Both the club and its fans receive the name "culés", 8 and also, in reference to their colors, such as "azulgranas or blaugranas", as it appears in his hymn, the "Cant del Barça", which in his second line mentions "Som la gent blaugrana" (in Spanish, "We are the Barca people"). At the institutional level, the football Club FC Barcelona has at its service, to serve members, supporters and the general public, the Office of Attention to Barcelona, where who requests it is attended in the official languages of the club, which are Catalan, the Spanish and English.
FC Barcelona playes top football league in Spain.
One of the main characteristics of FC Barcelona is its sports nature. It is distinguished from other sports institutions by the fact that it has an extensive track record at European level, by the high level of training of its players, the economic potential it manages, by the quality of the players and also because «it has a remarkable culture of the game and of the triumph. ”Likewise, the Olympic medalists who have represented the Blaugrana entity have conquered eleven golds, twenty-three silvers and twenty-eight bronzes in the different sports disciplines.
Another of its distinctive facts is its social mass of partners and fans. The club has managed to strategically integrate political, religious, cultural and social issues, which are framed within the sports field, this allows members and fans to respond to all social events of the club, also having greater participation in administrative activities and strengthen the links between the clubs. In 2011 it reached 180,000 members, being until that moment the second team with more associates in the world, followed by Manchester United.
His two historical rivals are the Spanish Royal Sports Club, against which he plays the Catalan derby, and Real Madrid CF, with whom he faces in "The Classic", being this one of the most rival and interesting matches of world football .
He is one of the most popular teams in his country and in the world. According to a survey published by Personality Media, the F.C. Barcelona has 32.1% sympathy among the population that follows football, followed by Real Madrid with 32.07% .The number of supporters favors having an estimated market value of just over 3500 million euros and obtained in 2018-19 an amount of revenue of 690 million.
It is the most successful Spanish club, dominated by the winners with seventy-four championships, among twenty-six Leagues of Spain, thirty Cups of the King, two Cups of the League, thirteen Super Cups of Spain and three Cups Eva Duarte. And at the international level it boasts twenty-two trophies, located in the second European position with three Club World Cups, five Champions Leagues, four Uefa Cups, five UEFA Super Cups, two Latin Cups and three Fair Cups.
According to IFFHS statistics, F. C. Barcelona is the best European and world football team of the first decade of the 21st century, and leads the global ranking of the century with 4935 points with a difference of 274 points over the second place (Real Madrid CF) .It is also the football team that has appeared on the podiums of the FIFA World.
Barca Formation of 1903.
The Football Club Barcelona was founded on November 1899 by a group of twelve football fans, summoned by the Swiss Hans Gamper through an announcement published in the magazine Los Deportes on October of the same year. Among the twelve founders of the club were six Spaniards, three Swiss, two English and one German. The original name chosen was «Foot-ball Club Barcelona», in English, and the Swiss Walter Wild was appointed as the first president of the club for being the oldest person among those present.
At the end of his first decade he got his first titles, a Cup of Spain and a Cup of the Pyrenees.
During the 1910s the club took a great leap, both sports and social: it won two Spanish Cups and three Pyrenean Cups, and reached 3,000 members, becoming one of the most popular societies in Catalonia.In those years were when the nickname "culés" referring to club fans became popular. The team played their games in a field located on Barcelona's Industry Street, which was filled massively when playing Barcelona, and from the street you could see how the fans located in the part were sitting in the galleries made of wood, on their backs. highest in the stands. The image from the street was that of a large number of asses (asses), which is why Barcelona fans began to be called "culés" .From that decade it should also be noted that, in 1914, the club created his first sports section, athletics.
On January 1, 2013, the club first accepted a woman as a member, Edelmira Calvetó. In 1934 the journalist and athlete Ana María Martínez Sagi became the first woman who was part of the board of directors.
Primo de Rivera, Republic and Civil War (1923-1957)
F. C. Barcelona in 1928
The 1920s went down in history as the first golden age of the club. It went from 3,000 to 12,000 members and, in 1922, the first major stadium of the club, the Camp de Les Corts, with a capacity for 30,000 spectators. These were years in which the club won four Spanish Cups and, in 1929, the first Spanish League in history. It is also worth noting the incidents that occurred in 1925 when the government of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera closed the Les Corts stadium for six months and forced President Hans Gamper to resign because of the whistles with which the Barcelona fans received the interpretation of the Royal March in the prolegomena of a match. From that decade it should be noted that the club advanced in the line of expanding its sports nature, and created the grass hockey, basketball and rugby sections.
The Camp de Les Corts was the stadium of F. C. Barcelona from 1922 to 1957. Image from 1930. The 1930s were a great crisis for the club. The decade began with the suicide of Hans Gamper, probably due to the catastrophic economic situation in which he was plunged after the collapse of the Wall Street stock market in 1929. In the 1933/34 season FC Barcelona ended penultimate, avoiding the last place that until the previous season meant the decline of category. That season would be ahead of the Arenas de Guecho by six points of difference, although the Biscayan team avoided the descent thanks to the expansion of the First Division to twelve teams planned by the Spanish Federation before the start of the season and that supposed that season there would be no place of descent.
Subsequently, with the advent of the Second Republic there was a decrease in the number of members that worsened with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. That year, in addition, the president of the club Josep Suñol, who was a politician of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya was shot by national troops in the Sierra de Guadarrama. The club ended the decade with only 2500 members.
During the 1940s the club gradually overcame its social and sports crisis. The club was taken by the authorities of the new Franco regime that, from now on and until 1953, would directly appoint the president of the club. The new rectors Castilianized all levels of the club, eliminating any Catalan or Anglo-Saxon connotation. In 1940 the club was renamed "Club de Fútbol Barcelona" instead of "Football Club Barcelona", and the shield was modified: the four bars of the Catalan flag were removed to place the Spanish flag in place, although in 1949, on the occasion of the gold wedding of the club, the government authorized the replacement of the Catalan flag. On the sports plane, the team was rebuilt after the war crisis and they ended up conquering three Spanish leagues, a Spanish Cup and two Eva Duarte Cups. In addition, in the 1940s new multi-sports sections were created, among which those of handball and roller hockey.
The 1950s were one of the best decades in the history of the club, both sports and social. The signing of Ladislao Kubala, in 1950.49 was the cornerstone on which a team was built that, in that decade, won 3 Spanish Leagues, 5 Cups of the Generalissimo, 4 Cups Eva Duarte, 3 Cup Duward, 1 Cup Latin , 2 Martini & Rossi Cup and 1 Small Club World Cup. The social mass grew to 38,000 members who left the Les Corts field small, so that a new stadium was built, the Camp Nou, opened in September 1957. Another highlight of that decade was the holding of the first elections democratic to the presidency of the club in 1953, although only the male members voted. That same year there was a dispute with Real Madrid for the signing of Alfredo Di Stéfano, who would end up playing for the Madrid club.
Barcelona football Club (1957-1978)
Alignment of CF Barcelona in 1961, in the European Cup.
Barça against Hamburg in 1961: During the almost 40 years of the Franco dictatorship in Spain, when Catalan political institutions were banned and repressed, the club became one of the symbols of the anti-Franco struggle in Catalonia and the resistance against centralism represented by the Franco regime. 53 The stadium of FC Barcelona became one of the few public stages where fans freely expressed themselves, and the club became the best ambassador of Catalonia abroad. It was in those years when it was said that, because of its symbolism, Barcelona was "more than a club", an expression given by President Narcís de Carreras in his inauguration speech in 1968.
After the successes of the 1950s came the crisis of the 1960s, in which the football team won 2 Cups of the Generalissimo and 2 Cups of Fairs. These titles, however, failed to compensate for the defeat in the final of the 1961 European Cup or the social crisis generated by the marches of Helenio Herrera and Luis Suarez at Inter Milan, with which the Italian team would win two Cups of Europe.
During the 1970s the unstoppable increase in club members continued: it went from 55,000 to 80,000. These were the years in which Spanish football opened the doors to foreign players and the club signed to internationals such as Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Hugo Sotil, Hansi Krankl and Allan Simonsen. In that decade, the football team won a Spanish League, 2 Copa del Rey, 1 Champions Cup and 1 European Cup Winners Cup. In 1978, José Luis Núñez became president, who would lead the club for the next two decades.
The Catalan team was invited to the Triangular Tournament of the Italian team AC Milan and an Argentine team Altos Hornos Zapla those teams in two Triangular games on the First Date played first against Altos Hornos Zapla who finished tied for 2-2 and was eliminated with the Bronze medal in the previous final.
Johan Cruyff won four consecutive League titles (1991-1994) and the 1992 European Cup as coach of Barcelona. The 1980s were large investments in the signing of great stars such as Maradona, Schuster or Lineker, but the football team could only win in Spain a league, three King's Cups, a Super Cup and two League Cups. Two European Cups were won at European level, but he fell again in a European Cup final, the one played in Seville in 1986 against the Steaua of Bucharest. After a serious sports and social crisis, in 1988 the club hired to Johan Cruyff as coach, a fact that would mark the fate of the club during the next decade.61 The most positive of the 1980s was the expansion of the Camp Nou, the increase in members, which exceeded the figure of 100,000, the economic revitalization of the club and the successes of the basketball, handball and roller hockey sections, which won important Spanish and European titles.
The decade of the 1990s was the second best decade in the history of Football Club Barcelona. There were ten years of success for the club in all orders, both in the football field and in the sports sections. The football team, trained by Johan Cruyff, and with players such as Koeman, Guardiola, Amor, Stoichkov, Romário, Laudrup, Zubizarreta or Bakero won four consecutive Leagues between 1991 and 1994. a Cup, three Spanish Super Cups, a European Cup Winners Cup and a European Super Cup; and May 20, 1992 won the most precious title of the club: the European Cup, at Wembley Stadium, against the Italian Sampdoria with Koeman score.During These years, the team played a great game and was popularly known as "Dream Team", imitating the terminology that was used with the United States Basketball Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. After the defeat at the final of the 1994 European Cup against AC Milan 4-0 at the Athens Olympic Stadium, the era of the "Dream Team" was closed.
Cruyff then began working on a new generation of youth workers. The so-called "Quinta del Mini" needed time to dock, and Barcelona did not get titles in the 1994-95 season. The team hired Luís Figo in 1995 to replace Michael Laudrup, who joined Real Madrid.69 However, the team's sporting situation deteriorated to the point of a deep social division between coach supporters, Johan Cruyff and supporters of the president, José Luis Núñez. Finally, Cruyff was fired in the absence of two days to finish the 1995-96,70 season and Núñez cleared the workforce of any trace of the Dutch. This created a great social crisis in the club, which did not disappear despite the titles won by Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal, and ended up leading to the resignation of José Luis Núñez in 2000.
The 1990s were also a great decade for the other professional sections. The basketball team was consolidated in the elite of Spanish and European basketball, although it failed to win the European Cup, whose final played four times in that decade. The handball team became the best handball team in the world: it won all the titles, among which six European Cups stand out.
Commemorative plaque of the 100 years of the Football Club Barcelona (1899-1999).
Resignation of Núñez and arrival of Laporta (2000-2008)
2000 can clearly be divided into two stages. After the resignation of Núñez in May 2000, he was elected President Joan Gaspart. The club invested 180 million euros in signings of football players such as Marc Overmars, Javier Saviola and Juan Román Riquelme. Despite this, Gaspart's three years as president ended up without football titles, and with a frequent rotation of coaches. The only sporting successes were provided by the sections, especially the basketball team that won the Euroleague in 2003.
After the resignation of Gaspart, Joan Laporta became president, who faced a profound sports, economic and social renewal.
The club signed players like Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Rafael Márquez and Deco; and Lionel Messi who debuted in the official game on October 16, 2004. The new coach became Frank Rijkaard. The team cut the six-year streak without winning titles by claiming champion of the 2004-05 League; 76 and also won two consecutive Spanish Leagues by repeating success in 200677 and the second Champions League, and the mass The club's social group exceeded for the first time in history the figure of 140,000 members.
This stage ended at the end of the 2007-2008 season, after two years without titles, with the dismissal of then coach Frank Rijkaard (June 30, 2008) and the presentation of a motion of censure against Joan Laporta and his board of directors ( May 9, 2008).
The "Guardiola Era" (2008-2012)
With the arrival of Pep Guardiola in command of the team, Barcelona went down in history in the 2008-09 season after winning the "triplet" conquering the League, the Cup and the Champions League. It was thanks to the triumph in the final of Rome against Manchester United by 2-0 that the «Pep Team» got the triplet, becoming the first and only Spanish team to have achieved such a feat, and moving to the select circle of European clubs that they have achieved it before (Celtic, Ajax, PSV and Manchester United) .81 In addition, Barcelona was proclaimed champion of Europe counting among its ranks with seven starting players in the final. The Pep Guardiola team, in addition to winning the three main titles, managed to overcome the feats of the «Dream Team» in terms of figures achieved in the League, breaking several goal records, games won as a visitor, etc.
At the start of the 2009-10 season, the team won the Spanish Super Cup by winning the Athletic Club in both games. He also won the European Super Cup by beating Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0. The team led by Josep Guardiola, after conquering the Club World Cup against Students of La Plata 2-1, passed definitively to the history of world football, getting the six official titles in the same year, a feat that had not been never before achieved by any other club.83 Guardiola Barcelona won its second consecutive League in May 2010, with a total of 99 points, a figure that no other club had reached before.
Barcelona won their fourth European Cup in the 2011 Wembley final against Manchester United 3-1, thus drawing Ajax in the medal winners. On July 11, 2010, the Spanish team won the World Cup final by aligning seven Barcelona players in the starting team, six of them formed in La Masía.
On February 5, 2011, the team achieved a new record by reaching its sixteenth consecutive victory in the League, against Atlético de Madrid, exceeding that of Real Madrid that had fifteen straight wins during the 1960-61.85 season On March 2, 2011, Barcelona gets another historic record when they beat Valencia, that victory won would allow them to reach the twenty undefeated games away from home, exceeding the record of the Real Sociedad team which had reached In the 1978-79 season, nineteen meetings without losing.
The 2010-11 season would end with Barcelona as the League champion for the third consecutive year and for the twenty-first time, 87 88 and UEFA Champions League champion for the fourth time.
After the achievement of the Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup, Club World Cup and Copa del Rey in the 2011-12 season, the Guardiola era was closed with fourteen titles won from eighteen possible.
Institutional instability (2012-2014)
The 2012-13 campaign begins with a change in the bench, the one by Tito Vilanova by Josep Guardiola.91 The team maintains its level and achieves the best first lap in history (18 wins and 1 draw), 92 that is tarnished Due to the relapse of Tito Vilanova due to cancer of the parotid gland in December, so it must be operated in New York, 93 only until the month of April can he return to the bench. The season continues with promising results but they fail to pass the semifinals in the Copa del Rey and in the Champions League, although as expected during much of the championship they are proclaimed League champions, 94 equaling the historical record of 100 points and 115 goals. 95 After a season on the bench, on July 19, 2013 Vilanova decided to leave the club due to his cancer which had suffered several months ago.96 Gerardo Martino was hired instead.
On January 23, 2014, Sandro Rosell resigned from his position as president due to the complaint of alleged misappropriation following the transfer of Neymar. Josep Maria Bartomeu replaces him until the end of his term in 2016.
After that on February 20, the club is charged with a possible fraud of 9.1 million to the Treasury in the transfer of Neymar. On February 24, the Barca entity enters the Treasury 13 million euros, but continues to insist on its innocence. Finally on June 3, the Treasury concludes that Barça has committed a crime of more than 9 million euros. The Prosecutor of the National Court intends to take Barça and Sandro Rosell to trial.
On April 2, 2014, FIFA prohibits the club from signing players until June 2015, for infractions related to international transfer and registration of players under 18. This is due to serious infractions in 10 signings made between 2009 and 2013, infringing art. 19 of the Regulations on the Statute and Transfer of Players.103 Barça appealed and the sanction was suspended, but later it would end up being confirmed.
During the first half of the season, the team led by Martino showed good numbers, but in the end he could not get any title apart from the Spanish Super Cup: Barcelona was eliminated by Atlético de Madrid in the quarterfinals of the League of Champions, and a few days later, fell in the final of the Copa del Rey against Real Madrid.On May 17, 2014, after losing the League on the last day, Tata announces his departure.108 Two days later, Luis Enrique assumes the position.
Luis Enrique's Barcelona started the League with 7 wins and a draw (without conceding a single goal) in the first 8 days, but lost the lead after two consecutive losses to Real Madrid and Celta de Vigo, finishing the first round in second place, with a point of disadvantage over Real Madrid. Luis Enrique's methods, with frequent rotations to dose his players, confronted him with part of the squad, most notably with Lionel Messi, and even the dismissal of the Asturian coach was raised after a defeat against the Royal Society. From that moment, the numbers and the Catalan team's game improved substantially, qualifying for the final of the Copa del Rey and the Champions League and regaining the leadership in the League. On May 17, 2015, Barcelona is proclaimed champion of the League, and two weeks later, he also wins the Copa del Rey. Barça ended the season by proclaiming itself champion of the Champions League for the fifth time in its history, and thus becoming the only team that achieves two triplets.
The 2015-16 season began with the conquest of the fourth title of the year, the European Super Cup, winning 5-4 against Sevilla in the final. On the other hand, the Spanish Supercup escaped by falling for a 5-1 overall result against Athletic Club. The results were also not expected in the Champions League, where they fell defeated by Atlético de Madrid by a global 3- 2 in the quarterfinals. However, at the end of the season Barça was able to obtain the League title and the Copa del Rey, getting his seventh national double.
The 2016-17 season was the last of Luis Enrique on the Barça bench due to his resignation due to the wear and tear of the job, according to the same coach. He won the Spanish Super Cup at Sevilla F.C for a 5-0 overall. By Champions League, after leaving first of his group with a single defeat in condition of a visitor against Manchester City, on March 8, 2017 there was a historic comeback. After losing in Paris to Paris Saint-Germain by a shameful 4-0, the team was able to turn the score in extremis (the 6-1 scored only 20 seconds after the end of the game) at Camp Nou with a 6-1 scoreboard with goals from Suárez, Messi, Neymar and Sergi Roberto plus a Kurzawa autogol.127 However, he would lose in the quarterfinals against Juventus by a 3-0 overall. In the end he could only revalidate the title for Copa del Rey, since he lost La Liga to Real Madrid on the last date.
The arrival of Ernesto Valverde to the technical direction of the club is confirmed on May 29, 2017. After a promising pre-season in the United States and having to circumvent the signing of Neymar by the PSG, the start of the season was not the expected since he lost the Spanish Super Cup to his "arch-rival" Real Madrid for a 5-1 overall. However, in La Liga Santander its start was sweeping by getting 7 victories in the first 7 dates and defeating Juventus with a bulky 3-0 in the Champions League. On April 14, 2018 he exceeded the Real Sociedad record of 38 consecutive games without losing in the league (in force for 38 years), leaving the record in 43 games after losing against Levante on the penultimate day of the League in which the coach he booked Messi.134 On the 21st of the same month he conquers his 30th Copa del Rey, getting the double, the eighth in its history. The team added a new disappointment in the Champions League to be eliminated with Roma in the quarterfinals, for the third consecutive year in this instance. The club has won just 1 Champions of the last seven, achieving only that of Berlin in 2015.
The 2018-19 season begins with the obtaining of the Supercopa of Spain 2018 in which it was the first final played outside the Spanish territory. With this title, Messi becomes the most successful player in the competition with eight titles, and the club with thirty-three, beating Iniesta. In May 2019 the team won its 26th League, but lost the Cup final and was eliminated in the Champions League semifinals wasting a 3-0 lead, losing 4-0 in the round. In this way, the team has won 1 Champions in the last 8 years.
Coat of arms of the Villa de Barcelona that inspired the first shield of the club (1900-1910). The shield of the Football Club Barcelona is shaped like a "pot", divided into three barracks. In the two superiors the flag of Barcelona is reproduced, that is, the Cross of San Jorge and the Catalan lady. In the lower quarter a ball appears on the blue and grana colors of the club. In the center of the shield, in a strip, the initials of the club, «F.C.B.» appear.
After its foundation, the club used as its own shield that of the City of Barcelona as a way of expressing its connection with the city. This shield remained in use until 1910, two years after Hans Gamper saved the club from the deep crisis, in an attempt to provide the club with its own and differentiated shield. The entity called a contest open to all members to submit their proposals, winning the design of Carles Comamala, player of the club between 1903 and 1912.
The shield has varied little since that design of 1910 and the changes introduced have been, in large part, of an aesthetic nature, with small modifications in the outline of its profile. However, there were important changes due to political conditions, since, during the Franco regime, the acronym "F.C.B." was replaced by "C.F.B.", Club de Fútbol Barcelona, in line with the Castilianization of the name of the club. In addition, the number of barracks in the upper quarter had to be reduced to two and the Catalan flag was removed from the shield. In 1949, taking advantage of the events of the fiftieth anniversary of the entity, the four bars were incorporated again. At the end of 1974 the initial acronyms were included again, bringing the shield back to the original 1910 content.
The modern design of the shield is the work of an adaptation of the designer Claret Serrahima made in 2002, which includes more stylized lines, suppresses the points that separated the initials of the club, abbreviates the name and reduces the number of points. The shield has had ten versions since the foundation of the club. There are two versions about the origins of the club's shield. The first version tells that in 1900, one year after the club was founded, there was a meeting to decide the shield (until then, Barcelona had used the city shield). It seems that there was no agreement on the shape and content of the shield and at a time of the meeting the secretary, Luis d'Ossó, visibly angry, exclaimed "this is a pot", so some historians believe that this was the starting point to "trace the sketch of a pot".
In recent years it has been performed by renowned singers such as Joan Manuel Serrat, on the occasion of different acts such as the commemoration of the centenary of the club. In addition, the directive chaired by Joan Laporta has encouraged a variety of interpreters and musical ensembles to interpret it at the Camp Nou stadium, in the prolegomena of football matches, versioning it and adapting it to the most varied musical styles: pop, rock, rap, Samba, rumba, among others.
One of the details that characterize the hymn is the reference to the open and integrative character of the club, which does not differentiate the geographical origin of the followers; As one of the stanzas says, "It doesn't matter where we come from, whether from the south or from the north, a flag will join us."
Puyol, 2008-09: The distinctive colors of F. C. Barcelona are blue and grana, from which comes the nickname "azulgrana" ("blaugrana" in Catalan) with which the players and fans of the club are known.
There are several theories about the causes that led the founders of the club to choose these colors, although there is none that is sufficiently proven to be considered valid although the most widespread and documented indicates that it was Hans Gamper himself, founder of the club, Who decided the colors. In fact, it is proven that in the first football game that Gamper played in the city of Barcelona before the club was founded, he already dressed these colors. It is claimed that Gamper chose these colors because they were the ones that identified FC Basel, a Swiss team in which Gamper had played before arriving in Barcelona, since he had become a partner of FC Basel in 1896, wearing Barça for the first time three years before founding Barça. The theory that Joan Gamper was directly inspired by the colors of his former Swiss team when choosing those of Barça is one of the most reasonable and well-founded, but still there is no documentary evidence that endorses it and on the other hand it must cohabit with many more. At the founding meeting of FC Barcelona on November 29, 1899, which took place in the weapons room of the Solé Gymnasium, on the issue of the choice of blue and grana colors, Narciso Masferrer quotes: « It was extensively the name and colors that the club would adopt, being agreed, as the title of the company is Football Club Barcelona and the colors the blue and grana, which are, if we are wrong, the same of the Basel FC, which has until recently belonged to former Swiss champion Hans Gamper, our dear friend ».
The term "azulgrana" comes from the combination of the colors blue and grana. These colors have always been present in the team's jersey. However, during the first ten years of the club's history the pants were white, later black, and since the 1920s, blue. In the 2005/2006 season the team wore grana colored pants, something unpublished so far, due to commercial reasons. In the 2011/12 season the innovation in the first kit is that the shirt has the finest vertical stripes in history.
The team has an alternative uniform or second kit at the official level since 1913, when the color white for the shirt and the blue for the pants were chosen. This kit lasted more than sixty years, until the 1975/76 season, in which a yellow shirt with a Barça diagonal stripe entered the scene. It was varying in colors such as yellow, blue or red, in the different shirts with a vertical Barca stripe on its right side until from 1998/99 season Nike became the supplier choosing a very wide range of colors from so.
In November 2012, the club reports that, as part of its agreement with Qatar Sports Investment, Qatar Airways will replace Qatar Foundation as the main sponsor in the shirt since the 2013/14 season.
The stadium of F.C. Barcelona is the Camp Nou, owned by the club itself. Opened in 1957, it has a capacity of 99,354 spectators, 6 all seated. It is one of the four stadiums in Spain classified as "Five Star Stadium" by UEFA, which enables it to host the Champions League finals, European Super Cup and UEFA Cup, as has happened 15 times. It is located in the Les Corts neighborhood of Barcelona, next to other club facilities, such as the Mini Estadi (Barcelona B stadium) and the Palau Blaugrana, basketball team court. In the facilities of the Camp Nou is the Museum of F. C. Barcelona, the most visited museum in Catalonia.
At the beginning of its foundation, on November 29, 1899, F. C. Barcelona, did not have its own stadium. Due to the fact that he does not have his own playing field, FC Barcelona has to play his matches as a local team on outside playgrounds, from the first opening game as a club on December 8, 1899 until March 14, 1909 disputes his first home game in his own field, in the Campo de la Industria street. This lack of own stadium, forces him to play in different stages in which he has to move due to different circumstances and in which he remains in some for a few years and in others only in some games. You can count six different stadiums before having your own stadium. Its first stadium was the former Bonanova Velodrome in 1899, the second stadium was the Casanovas Hotel Field in 1900, the third stadium was La Plaza de las Armas in 1901, the fourth stadium was La Carretera de Horta between 1901 and 1905, the fifth stadium was that of La Calle Muntaner between 1905 and 1909 and the sixth stadium was the Campo de la Fuxarda, where only two games were played in 1909 before moving on to Stadium of Campo del Campo Industria1 Before the Camp Nou, FC Barcelona had two stadiums, also owned. Between 1909 and 1922 he played at the Camp del Carrer Indústria in Barcelona, commonly called La Escopidora, with a capacity of 6000 spectators, although the figures of the time were not very precise and the first one in Barcelona, which had a two-story grandstand , which aroused admiration at that time, in the city. One of the versions about the etymology of the word "culés" comes from the field stadium of Industria street (broken link available on the Internet Archive; see the history and the latest version), as the stands allowed to see from outside the enclosure the innkeepers of the fans.8 Between 1922 and 1957 he played his matches at the Campo de Les Corts, opened to accommodate 30,000 spectators, and which reached a capacity of 60,000 people. The Campo de Les Corts, was the field where F. C. Barcelona on September 24, 1926, began to play as a local on grass field, when he had done so far on land field.
At the expense of the municipal urban planning permits, the remodeling of the stadium that should have started in the last third of 2008 was planned and its completion was planned for 2012. The assigned architect was the British Norman Foster, who won after a contest in which only ten projects became finalists. Sir Norman Foster said he was inspired by Gaudí to create the new skin that will surround the stadium.162 The presidency of F. C. Barcelona and the College of Architects of Catalonia were the jury responsible for choosing the winning project.
The remodeling is based on updating a stadium that has more than 50 years and creating a cover to protect the spectators from the inclement weather. The fundamental requirements were: to cause minimal discomfort to the members, that the remodeling was compatible with the sports competition and that it adheres to a specific budget. As well as the creation of an attractive, modern and functional design.
In May 2010, the written press reports that the Camp Nou remodeling project by Norman Foster, which it presented in September 2007, may be forgotten and reconsidered by another remodeling project.
On the last day of the election campaign, on June 11, 2010, two days before Sandro Rosell was elected as president of FC Barcelona, two members of his team, Jordi Moix and Jordi Cardoner, presented the Espai Barça project, in Spanish, Espacio Barça, within which, among other works, the new Camp Nou reform model is included, as it appears in a news article on the club's website. The Espai Barça project for its execution will depend on being approved in the assembly of the committees, since according to Rosell: «The member is the owner of the club and therefore the assembly will determine if this proposal goes ahead» .165 The written press also informs approximately on the same dates that the Foster project will not be carried out and an overall cost assessment of 150 million euros is reported on the Espai Barça project. The Camp Nou will be remodeled internally, improving accessibility, covering the stands and expanding it with more seats. This reform will allocate an item of 30 million euros of the cost of the project. The works in case the project is approved, will last between six and eight years.
For the statistical details of the club see Statistics of the Football Club Barcelona
Throughout its history, the entity has seen how its name varied by various circumstances until the current Football Club Barcelona, effective since 1973. The club was founded under the name of Foot-ball Club Barcelona, and being formalized formally in 1903.
The Football Club Barcelona is one of the most successful institutions worldwide, totaling in its more than one hundred and ten years of history a total of one hundred and twenty eight official regional, national and international titles, which places it as the - «Spanish club with more official titles »-. Among them, five Champions Leagues, five UEFA Super Cups, four European Cups, three Fairs Cups, two Latin Cups, and three Club World Cups stand out by importance, adding twenty-two official international titles making it the second European club and of the most successful world. In national competitions he holds the trophy record with seventy-four, broken down between twenty-six Leagues, thirty Spanish Cups, thirteen Spanish Super Cups, two League Cups and three Eva Duarte Cups. As for titles of its autonomous community, it has twenty-three Catalan Championships, seven Catalan Cups and two Catalan Super Cups.
In 2009, directed by Josep Guardiola, the club conquered all the competitions he played: the League, the Cup, the Spanish Super Cup, the Champions League, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, being the first and only Spanish team and European since then to achieve a "sextuplete", winning six official titles in the same year. 5 171 In 2015, under the command of Luis Enrique, he won the "triplet" for the second time in its history, becoming the first European club to achieve such a feat.
It was considered by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) as the best club in the world in the years 1997, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015, being the institution that has most often led such classification.
It owns five trophies of the League in property for having won the competition three consecutive times or for five alternates, and six trophies of Copa del Rey, in turn totaling the highest number of awards owned by football clubs in Spain with a total of eleven.
From its foundation in 1899 until the 2017-18 season, the entity has achieved a career of one hundred and eighteen seasons, eighty-seven of them in the professional field. During that period he has played sixteen official regional, national and international competitions organized by FIFA, UEFA, RFEF and FCF.
Football Club Barcelona is one of the only three clubs that has always played in the First Division - maximum club competition in Spain and the highest category of the league system - since its foundation in the 1928-29 season, totaling eighty-seven presences . It occupies the second place in the classification between the sixty-two historical participants in addition to being the second most laureate with twenty-six and distinguished as the - first historical champion. His worst recorded position occurred in the 1941-42 season when he finished in twelfth place. As for the rest of the official national competitions, there are a total of one hundred and thirty-two appearances, in the Copa del Rey - competition in which the winners dominate - it has one hundred two presences over one hundred and fourteen totals, and only twelve absences.
In international competitions, he participates in the European Cup - the current Champions League - in which he has played a total of twenty-eight seasons with absence in thirty-five editions; It is, therefore, the fifth club with more presences and the third in the historical classification. In them he added a total of five titles that place him as the third most successful team in the competition among its 511 historical participants. It totals fifty-two appearances in the rest of official international competitions for eleven absences in seasons of UEFA competitions. Among the most relevant, eleven in the UEFA Cup / Europa League182 and thirteen in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup.
More than 1000 players have dressed the shirt of the first team of the football Club Barcelona throughout its 119 years of history. Players of foreign origin (although some, nationalized Spaniards) have always had a great weight in the history of the club, and have marked the brightest times of the Catalan team. Founded by a group of foreigners based in Barcelona, initially the team was made up of players of mostly English, Swiss and German origin. Most historians believe that the Hungarian Ladislao Kubala was, in the 1950s, the first great international figure who played for the Barcelona team. But it was from the 1970s, when Spanish football regularized the participation of foreign players, when the club began signing great international figures. F. C. Barcelona has since counted on various players who, militating in the Barca club, have won the most prestigious individual trophies in world football.
Five club players were awarded the FIFA World Player award that accredited them as the best footballers in the world: Romário, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho on two consecutive occasions, and Lionel Messi; and six were awarded the Golden Ball that accredited them as the best players in European football: Luis Suarez, Johan Cruyff on three occasions, Hristo Stoichkov, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi who made history in the club by being the first squad to get it . Up to twenty occasions, a player of the club has obtained the Ballon d'Or, Silver or Bronze, in addition to four other occasions in which a player has obtained one of these awards having played the first part of that year in the Barça club; Ronaldo in 1997 and being a player of Inter Milan, and Luís Figo in 2000 belonging to Real Madrid. In addition, the club has had players holding other major international awards such as Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández, Michael Laudrup, Samuel Eto'o, Allan Simonsen, Hansi Krankl, Diego Maradona, Gary Lineker and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
After the merger of the FIFA World Player with the Golden Ball, the FIFA Golden Ball was created, where the club has had eight nominations (Andrés Iniesta twice, Xavi Hernández twice and Lionel Messi four times) and three awards ( all to Lionel Messi, who along with his previous trophy, is the player with the most gold balls in history).
The players that have played the most official matches at FC Barcelona are: Xavi Hernández, Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Migueli. The Catalan Xavi Hernández with seven hundred sixty-nine games in seventeen seasons, is the Barcelona member with the Most years belonging to the institution.
The players who have scored the most goals in official competitions are: Lionel Messi, César Rodríguez, Ladislao Kubala, José Samitier and Luis Suárez. And the players who have scored the most goals, including unofficial competitions are Lionel Messi (635), Paulino Alcantara (369) and José Samitier (333). The Argentine Lionel Messi stands out as top historical scorer with six hundred scores, and the player who has won more titles in his stay at the entity with thirty-four.
F. C. Barcelona has historically been, together with Real Madrid, the club that has contributed with the best football players in Spain, and one of the teams that has contributed the most to the Spanish national team. The FC Barcelona player with the most international matches with the Spanish team was the midfielder Xavi Hernández, who played one hundred thirty-three matches, and together with Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué and Carles Puyol belong to the selective of Barcelona players of the «FIFA Century Club» for having played with one hundred or more matches with their national team.
F. C. Barcelona has had, telling its current coach, a total of 57 football coaches throughout its history. The first coach that had the club was the Englishman Billy Lambe, who led the team from January to September 1912, serving as both a player and a coach. Previously, the club had no coach. It was common practice in football teams that, until the early 1910s, the squad was made by the president and the board of directors, who decided to sign, transfer and, in most cases, match lineups . The training, which at that time were few because football was not professional, used to be managed by the players themselves.
Like Billy Lambe, the majority of coaches that F. C. Barcelona has had have been foreigners. Of the 57 coaches of the club, only 26 have been Spanish (16 of them Catalan). In most cases, the Spanish coaches have been former club players who agreed to the post after the head coach terminated. There have only been six cases of Spanish coaches who had not previously dressed the club shirt as a player: Enric Rabassa, Enrique Orizaola, Vicente Sasot, Laureano Ruiz, Luis Aragonés and Lorenzo Serra Ferrer.
The main nationalities of non-Spanish coaches have been English (10), Argentine (4), Dutch (4) and Hungarian (3). The club has also had two German coaches, two Serbs, an Austrian, a Slovak, a French, an Irish, an Italian and a Uruguayan. There have only been five non-European coaches in the club's history: four Argentines (Helenio Herrera, Roque Olsen, César Luis Menotti and Gerardo Martino) and one Uruguayan (Enrique Fernández).
The technician who remained in office for the most years was the Englishman Jack Greenwell, who led the team in two different periods, between 1913 and 1923, and between 1931 and 1933. The second longest-serving coach in the position was the Dutchman Johan Cruyff , which was eight consecutive years, between 1988 and 1996. Cruyff is also the coach who has directed the club in more games with four hundred and thirty, the one who won the most wins with two hundred and fifty, and with his eleven trophies obtained the second most titles got after Josep Guardiola; He also stands out as the coach with the biggest winning streak of league titles in the history of the entity with four between 1991 and 1994, and the first to win the European Cup. The third coach in the number of games directed is the Dutchman Rinus Michels, who led the team in three hundred and sixty-one games divided into two stages: between 1971 and 1975, and between 1976 and 1978.
Another outstanding coach was the Dutchman Frank Rijkaard, who served as head of the position from June 2003 to May 2008. With an offensive style he did an outstanding job, conquering two Leagues, two Spanish Super Cups and the Champions League in the season 2005-2006, the second in the history of the club. On May 8, 2008, the team's board announced the dismissal of coach Frank Rijkaard once the season ended, on June 30, one year before the end of his contract, being replaced by the coach of the subsidiary team Josep Guardiola.
On June 5, 2008, Josep Guardiola was officially introduced as coach of F. C. Barcelona. After on May 8, 2008, the Catalan club's board of directors announced that Guardiola would take the reins of the group as of June 30, Pep formalized the agreement at the Barça facilities on June 5, 2008. Guardiola made history at get the "sextuplete" conquering Cup, League, Champions League, Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup and Club World Cup in their debut year on the team bench. He also achieved other outstanding achievements, such as chaining three consecutive leagues (matching Johan Cruyff) and winning the fourth European Cup. Moreover, with fourteen titles he is the most successful coach in the history of the club.
On April 27, 2012, it is announced that Tito Vilanova would be the substitute for Guardiola at the head of the first team next season, this manages to keep up with great results especially in the League, reaching the best first lap in history. But in December he suffers a relapse of his cancer to the parotid gland, separating him from the bench for 4 months. Already on his return, the season continues on track, but ends up being eliminated from the Copa del Rey and the Champions League in the semifinals. On the other hand, League champions are proclaimed with 100 points and 115 goals, a record. On July 19, 2013, Vilanova's own resignation was announced, after falling back on his illness.96 Four days later, it was confirmed that Gerardo Martino would be the new coach, signing for 2 seasons.195 On April 25, 2014, former club coach Tito Vilanova, dies due to his song in the city of Barcelona. After just one season in the club, Martino leaves the entity after only obtaining a title, the Spanish Super Cup. On May 19, 2014, Luis Enrique assumes as a new coach with a contract until 2016, which at the end was extended one more season, having won 9 titles including a triplet, a quintuple and a double, and then be relieved by Ernesto Valverde, who to date has won 3 titles.
Josep Maria Bartomeu, current president of F. C. Barcelona.
The Football Club Barcelona has had, counting the current one, 40 presidents throughout its history. In addition, the club has been led by an employee committee, which managed the club during the civil war, and several management commissions. In the constitution assembly of the club, the Swiss president Walter Wild was elected as the first president, who had closely helped his friend and compatriot Hans Gamper in the founding process. Gamper, however, was later president up to five different stages. The president with a longer term in the club's history was José Luis Núñez, who held the position for 22 years, between 1978 and 2000.
The presidency of FC Barcelona is elected by its members, through elections by universal suffrage, held every four seasons, in which they have the right to choose and to be elected all the members and members of the club over 18 years, with one year old as club members.
The president chooses the members of his Board of Directors, who are ratified by an assembly of compromising partners: 300 members over 18 years elected by lottery and who, during a period of two years, participate in the annual assemblies of partners, with voice and vote, on behalf of all club members.
The last president of FC Barcelona was Josep Maria Bartomeu, an entrepreneur who was vice president of the board of directors of Sandro Rosell and who acceded to the presidency after the resignation of Rosell in January 2014.98 The current board of directors was elected after an election held on June 13, 2010, to which 3 more candidates were presented.
On March 26, 2010, Johan Cruyff was unanimously appointed by the Board of Directors of FC Barcelona as Honorary President of the Club, 200 treating this title as "protocol rank", appointment that agrees, according to the news of the web of the club, with article 16 of the Statutes of FC Barcelona.7 On July 2, 2010, Johan Cruyff returns the badge that distinguished him as honorary president of FC Barcelona. According to Sandro Rosell, the figure of Honorary President is legal, since it does not exist and the Assembly of Committing Partners must be expected to debate the creation of a statutory change that contemplates this figure and the decision, if approved, of Who should be chosen for the position.
Main article: Sports sections of the Football Club Barcelona, the reason for the foundation of the club, remains the main sport of F. C. Barcelona, and the activity that accounts for more than seventy-five percent of the club's budget.
The first football team plays in the First Division of Spain, and is one of the three clubs that have always competed in this category since the first edition of La Liga, in 1929. The other two clubs that hold this honor are Athletic Club and Real Madrid. Barcelona has won the League championship in a total of twenty-six occasions, the last in the 2018-19 season.
In the 2009-10 season, the team finished in the League in first place, which allowed them to qualify directly to play next season in the UEFA Champions League. Barcelona has managed to prevail in this trophy four times, in 1992, 2006, 2009 and 2011. In addition, Barça is the only club in history to get the triplet twice: winning the League, Copa del Rey and European Cup in the same year.
Football Club Barcelona holds the record of being the only European football team that has participated continuously in continental competitions since its creation in 1955. It is also the team with the most titles in the extinct European Cup Winners Cup with four titles and the one that It has more triumphs in the Spanish Cup in its different denominations with thirty conquests.
The club has an important quarry of players, from the category of fry. The subsidiary of the first football team is Barcelona "B", which plays in the Second Division of Spain.
In addition to its main section, football, the club has four other professional sections: basketball, handball, roller hockey and indoor football.203 Among the five professional sections, FC Barcelona has thirty-nine Champions League (or Euroleagues in the case of basketball), which makes it the second most laureate sports club in Europe and, together with Dinamo de Moscow and CSKA de Moscow (this one with 7), the only one that has achieved the maximum continental title in five different sports.
One of the relevant data of the club was the achievement of the Champions League consecutively for seventeen years, from the 1995-96 season to 2011-12 with one of its professional sections, has also won a European "triplet" with the football, Handball and Hockey Skates sections in the 2014-15 season and six European "doublets" with the Handball and Hockey Skates sections in the 1996-97, 1999-2000 and 2004-05 seasons with the Basketball and Hockey Skates sections in the 2009-10 season, with the Football and Handball sections in the 2010-11 season and with the Futsal and Roller Hockey sections in the 2013-14 season. It also highlights the fact that from the 1988-89 season that begins with the victory of the football team, in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup in Bern against Sampdoria until 2011-12, every season for 24 years, some of the sports club raised some European title. As regards seasons, in the global calculation of titles achieved by all sections without counting the regional ones, the 2011-12 season was the most successful of the club since it achieved the conquest of seventeen championships (historical record for the club ), followed by the 2010-11 season with 14 and 2009-10.
In addition to these five professional sections, the club has amateur sections in other sports disciplines: male and female field hockey, male and female athletics, male and female skating, ice hockey, male and female volleyball, rugby, beach football, football Indoor, women's football and wheelchair basketball.
Barcelona has organized, since 1966,214, an annual friendly football tournament, the Joan Gamper Trophy, which is usually held in August as part of the preseason.
The Football Club Barcelona is a multi-sport institution that, in addition to football teams, has teams in twelve other sports disciplines. These disciplines are structured as sports sections within the club. F. C. Barcelona distinguishes, from a structural point of view, between professional male sections, non-professional men's sections and women's sections. From Josep Samitier to Neymar there are 62 Olympic medals (11 gold, 23 silver and 28 bronze) 215 that have been won by athletes of the entity with a valid contract.
Professional male sections
Aspect of the Palau Blaugrana during the dispute of the basketball match that faced FC Barcelona and the Euroleague Lottomatica Roma in February 2008.
FC Barcelona players during a handball European Cup match at Palau Blaugrana in October 2008.
The professional sections are four, basketball, handball, roller hockey and futsal. They are the four most professionalized and prestigious sections, which participate in the highest category competitions of their respective disciplines in Spain. In addition, the men's teams of these four sections are part of the elite of the best clubs in Europe, for the amount of continental titles they have won. Among these four sections, F. C. Barcelona has 32 European Cups. The teams of these three sections have their headquarters and dispute their meetings in the Palau Blaugrana, sports hall attached to the Camp Nou with capacity for 7585 spectators.The F. C. Barcelona basketball (section created in 1926) is the second club in Spain in basketball in number of titles won, and one of the most prestigious in Europe. The basketball section lived its best years in the 1980s and 1990s, in which it won several Spanish and European titles. His most precious title, however, the Euroleague (or European Cup), did not get it until the 2002-2003 season, when he won the final phase held in the city of Barcelona itself. The current technical secretary of the basketball section is Joan Creus, and the team coach is Sito Alonso.
The handball section was founded in 1942, and is the one that has given more titles to the club. The team of handball of the Barça is the set that accumulates more titles of Spain and Europe, with 8 European Cups. In 2011 he was again crowned as the best European team to win his eighth European Cup. The current technical secretary of the handball section is Enric Masip, and the team coach is Xavier Pascual.
The skate hockey section of FC Barcelona was also created in 1942, and is considered one of the best clubs in the world of roller hockey, it is the most successful in Europe, accumulating 20 European Cups. The current technical secretary The hockey section is Quim Paüls.
The futsal section is considered professional since the team's return to the LNFS Division of Honor. In the 2010/2011 season he won his first professional title: the Spanish Cup.
Non-professional male sections
FC Barcelona hockey team during a match against HC Anglet Hormadi at the Palau de Gel.
In addition to the professional men's sections, the club has amateur sections in eight other sports disciplines: athletics, skating, ice hockey, volleyball, field hockey, wheelchair basketball, rugby and beach football. The director of the non-professional sections of the club is the former Argentine roller hockey player Gaby Cairo.The athletic section of the club has the honor of being, after football, the first section created in the history of the club. It was officially formed in 1915, although in the year 1911 on the occasion of the closing of the football season an athletic festival is celebrated and the chronicles tell that the club was already practicing athletics since 1900. The athletic team of FC Barcelona has It has always been considered one of the best in Spain as evidenced by the numerous titles achieved, both in national and international competitions. In his medal list they emphasize more than 30 championships of Spain by clubs in different modalities. The team has historically had some of the best athletes in Spain, such as the Olympic medalists José Manuel Abascal and Javier García Chico, and Spanish champions such as Antonio Corgos, Javier Moracho, Colomán Trabado or Gregorio Rojo who later continued to work as a coach in this section and came to be considered one of the best athletic trainers in Spain.
The rugby section of F. C. Barcelona is one of the oldest in the club: it was created in 1924. It has its playing field in the sports city of F. C. Barcelona. Senior A team started competing in the 2006/2007 season in the Spanish Honor Division, after arriving at an agreement and merger with USAP Barcelona, occupying the place that this team had in the top category of Spanish rugby, thus returning , after many years to the category. It is one of the most successful clubs in Spain thanks to the titles won between 1940 and 1960. Among the titles won by the rugby section are 16 championships in Spain, 2 Spanish leagues and 1 Spanish Super Cup.
Other non-professional sections of the club are:
Wheelchair basketball: F. C. Barcelona-Institut Guttman.
Ice Hockey: Created in 1972. Play Pavilion: Palau de Gel.
Field hockey: Created in the 1923-1924.224 season The first team competes in the Honor Division A.
Figure skating on ice. Created on January 25, 1972.
Volleyball.
Beach football. Created in March 2011.
Female sections
F. C. Barcelona has been strengthening its women's sections in recent years, given the increasing participation of women in sports, and the professionalization of competitive structures. The women's sections of the club are football, basketball, athletics, figure skating, volleyball and field hockey.
Women's Football: the women's football section militates in the highest category, the First Division. In his medal list there are four Leagues, four Cups of the Queen and seven Cups of Catalonia.
The first women's football game played by a team of FC Barcelona was on Christmas Day 1970 on the occasion of a charity festival. The encounter faced the Catalan players, trained by Antoni Ramallets, against the EU Centelles at the Camp Nou. Subsequently he participated in the first informal championship of Catalonia for women's football, held in the 1971-1972 season.
During the 80s and 90s the entity participated under the name of Club Femení Barcelona, and used the colors, badges and facilities of the Club. During those years he obtained his greatest successes in the Queen's Cup competition when he reached a runner-up (1991) and a championship (1994).
In 2001 FC Barcelona definitely incorporated women's football as an official section and continued to compete in the second category of the First National. In the 2003-04 season it exceeded the promotion of promotion and ascended to the Super League, 228 but that did not translate into its consolidation. In the 2006-07 season, the team lost the category and they even raised their disappearance.
With the arrival on the bench of Xavi Llorens in the 2007-08 season the team returned to the Super League. Since 2010 the section has chained one success after another achieving four consecutive Leagues (2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15), four Cups of the Queen (2011, 2013, 2014 and 2017) and seven Cups of Catalonia (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016).
Women's basketball: the women's basketball team was called UB-Barça, as it was the result of the association between F. C. Barcelona and the basketball team of the University of Barcelona. He competed in the Spanish Women's Basketball League, which he conquered twice. The team disappeared in 2007, due to the economic debts of the club associated with Barça.
Subsequently, the club created an official section, fully integrated into the club. Currently competing in 1st Catalan.
Female athletics: The women's athletic team of F. C. Barcelona competes in the Division of Honor, the highest category of Spanish athletics. The team has been represented by Spanish international athletes Montse Mas, a specialist in 800 smooth meters, Rosa Morató, European cross champion in 2005, or Maria Vasco, a bronze medalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Female skating: The women's figure skating team was founded, like the men's team, on January 25, 1972,232 coinciding with the inauguration of the Palau de Gel, the ice rink of the club, annexed to the Palau Blaugrana, and which is the headquarters of the team. The team has given numerous successes to the club, among which 10 titles of the Club Championship of Spain stand out. One of the top figures in the section was Marta Andrade, considered the greatest figure in the history of Spanish figure skating, and who was a finalist in the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer and Nagano.
Women's volleyball: The women's volleyball team competes with the name CVB Barça and militates in the Spanish volleyball silver division, Super League 2.
Female grass hockey: The women's grass hockey team competes in the national silver division, known as the Women's First Division.
In addition to all the sections mentioned, the Football Club Barcelona has had teams in up to eight other sports disciplines throughout its history. They are sections that, for one reason or another, dissolved. Between 1924 and 8 the club had a Greco-Roman wrestling team whose figure was the Olympic champion Emili Ardèvol.235 Another of the great Spanish athletes who belonged to the discipline of the club was Joaquín Blume, a member of the gymnastics section that the club had between 1957 and 1976.
Barça also had sections of tennis (1926-1936), swimming (1942), roller skating (1952-1956) and judo (1961-1976).
Other sections that have disappeared have been American football, which was part of the club between 2001 and 2003, after the disappearance of Barcelona Dragons, a team that competed in the European division of the NFL (National Football League), and cycling that, after reappearing in 2004 under the direction of Melchor Mauri, was extinguished again at the end of 2006 due to the lack of agreement on how to direct this sport by the various international federations.
In 1941 the club created a baseball section that, despite being one of the least known of the club, had never ceased to exist. The section had male teams in all categories, from fry to senior, who had their pitch at the Pérez de Rozas Stadium, located in the Montjuïc mountain of Barcelona. The senior team won the Spanish Baseball League four times in the years 1946, 1947, 1956 and 2011 competed in the highest category of Spanish baseball, the Division of Honor when its dissolution was announced in June 2011.
Social area and sociocultural dimension
FC Barcelona brings together members and fans of all political ideologies, religious beliefs and geographical backgrounds.12 The club has managed to strategically integrate political, religious, cultural and social issues, which are framed within the sports field, this allows members and fans respond to all social events of the club, also that have greater participation in administrative activities and strengthen the links between the clubs.
The club, considered the best known social entity in Catalonia abroad, has fulfilled throughout its history, for many fans, a representative role in defense of Catalan values, 238 that the club has publicly defended on multiple occasions , as the English journalist Jimmy Burns points out in his book Barça, the passion of a people. The club has always been meant by activities and gestures in defense of Catalan culture and language, which has been the official language of all club documents, except in the years of Franco's dictatorship. Except in that same period, the team captain has always worn the Catalan flag as a distinctive bracelet.170 The club, in addition, has also formally and publicly demonstrated in support of the claims of greater autonomy for Catalonia and signed supporting manifests to the statutes of autonomy both in 1932 and in 1979 and 2006.
Players, technicians and the board, deliver the club's offering on the Day of Catalonia.
That trajectory of defense of Catalan values was recognized on December 21, 1992 when the Generalitat of Catalonia, chaired by Jordi Pujol, awarded him the Creu de Sant Jordi Prize, the highest distinction granted by the Government of Catalonia.
Some historians and essayists, such as Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, came to point out that, for many Catalans, FC Barcelona plays in Catalonia the substitute role of the Catalan national team in the international concert, despite the long tradition of Spanish athletes of non-Catalan origin and of foreigners that the club has had.241 These essayists point out that this is one of the reasons why the Barcelona club has teams in so many different sports disciplines such as basketball, handball, roller hockey, athletics, volleyball, etc. .
Along these lines, it should be noted that F. C. Barcelona has publicly declared itself in favor of the international recognition of Catalan sports teams. In recent years, it has not only promoted the organization of friendly matches between the selection of Catalonia and other international teams such as Brazil or Argentina, but has freely ceded its facilities as the venue for the meetings and has provided all its athletes.242 243 In addition, the club has signed public manifests in favor of the cause. During the presidency of Joan Laporta, he himself and some player like Oleguer participated in an advertising campaign of the Pro-Selecciones Catalanas Platform that, under the slogan "a nation, a selection", occupied advertising spaces in a large number of media writings and audiovisuals of Catalonia.
Despite its connection with Catalan ideas, the club has always had a large number of fans and even partners throughout Spain, attracted by the sporting values of the club.245 Some historians, however, have pointed out that, in addition to admiration for sports values, many Spanish fans sympathized with Barcelona when they saw in the Catalan club the alternative to «political centralism» with which they identified Real Madrid, [citation needed] especially during the years of the Franco dictatorship, wrong foundation, 246 Since it had an impact on all the clubs in the country, it was in those years when the phrase that FC Barcelona was more than a club (rather than a club) was coined, which became the best known slogan of the entity.
On the other hand, and as various historians have pointed out, the club also brought together, especially during its first decades of life, the supporters of republicanism. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, different events point to the complicity of club leaders with Republican ideals.
The moment of greatest distancing between the club and the Spanish monarchy took place under the reign of Alfonso XIII and during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. At the Les Corts stadium, Barcelona fans had expressed criticism of the dictatorship and displayed some banners against the regime. Finally, on June 14, 1925, the 14,000 stadium fans booed the "Royal March," played by a band. Days later, Captain General and Civil Governor of Barcelona Joaquín Milans del Bosch issued an order that closed the stadium for six months and forced Hans Gamper to resign as president of the club and go into exile to Switzerland for a season. the stadium justified the measure indicating that "in the aforementioned society there are people who share ideas contrary to the good of the country," as historian Jaume Sobrequés in his work FC Barcelona, One Hundred Years of History. It was the toughest penalty the club has received in its entire history. As Sobrequés himself points out, the highlight of the club's commitment to republican principles took place from 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed and, above all, from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War when, in 1936, FC Barcelona voluntarily became «Entity at the service of the legitimate government of the Republic».
After the restoration of democracy in Spain in 1977, the club has been losing that political connotation. He normalized his relations with the Spanish crown and on several occasions expeditions formed by leaders and sportsmen of the club have offered their trophies at the Palacio de la Zarzuela.252 The courtship and subsequent marriage of Infanta Cristina with the handball player of FC Barcelona Iñaki Urdangarín made frequent in the late 1990s and early 2000s the presence of members of the Spanish Royal Family in the Palau Blaugrana, including King Juan Carlos I. The last gesture of complicity between the club and the Royal House took place on May 17, 2006, on the occasion of the 2005-06 UEFA Champions League final, when the Kings went to Paris to show their support for the Barça team and, after the match, they went down to the grass to congratulate the team players together with the president of the Spanish government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, declared a follower of the Barcelona team, and the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia Pasq The same Maragall.
In the religious field, and despite the fact that the club's founder, Hans Gamper and its first leaders were Protestants, the club acquired a markedly Catholic character from the 1940s after the Spanish Civil War. The offerings of the club to the Montserrat Monastery were habitual, and even the Camp Nou stadium has a chapel next to the changing rooms, with a reproduction of the Virgin of Montserrat.257 In 1982, Pope John Paul II received the card of 108,000 club member, on the occasion of a mass mass that he officiated at the Camp Nou.
In recent times the club has been meant by its solidarity gestures. At the beginning of the 1980s he already organized a friendly match for the benefit of Unicef, in which Barça faced the Human Stars team at the Camp Nou, a selection of the best football players in the world. Repeat the experience. Also in that decade the club was involved in the fight against drugs, organizing various parties in collaboration with the Drug Aid Foundation, whose benefits went to the Man Project.
With the arrival of Joan Laporta to the presidency, the club expressed its intention to increase its involvement in social causes, expressing the desire that the club be recognized worldwide for its solidary spirit. In that sense, at the end of 2005, FC Barcelona organized a friendly match at the Camp Nou before a joint selection of Israeli and Palestinian players, who for the first time shared equipment.261 In recent years the club has signed various agreements in collaboration with NGOs, giving economic aid for the development of developing countries.
The club allocates 0.7% of the annual budget to the Football Club Barcelona Foundation, aimed at humanitarian projects.263 As of 2006, the club undertook to make a donation of not less than 1.5 million euros to UNICEF, for it to improve the living conditions of children around the world.264 The first joint project of both organizations was aimed at children victims of AIDS in Swaziland.265 In addition, he put the name of the organization in the central space of his first luggage, being the first time he wore advertising on the shirts of the football team.
On December 13, 2008, coinciding with the classic dispute, the club began broadcasting its Barça TV television channel for free on DTT for all of Catalonia, the result of an agreement with the Godó Group. created almost a decade ago and continues its emissions in the payment mode for the rest of Spain.
The club is also present in social networks as part of its social management. It is found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, 268 being the first club in Spain to reach «an agreement with YouTube».
Foundation
Main article: Football Club Barcelona Foundation
The Football Club Barcelona Foundation is the social, humanitarian, cultural and sports entity created in 1994 with the aim of promoting and supporting all those humanitarian entities. It also focuses on children and adult communities that are considered vulnerable.
Initially, the activities and works carried out by the foundation materialized through donations by partners, supporters and business entities of the country that were made up of honorary members, collaborators and protective members. In 2006 the Foundation took a new impulse to receive from that year, 0.7% of the club's ordinary benefits (2.2 million euros in 2008). He also adhered to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals plan and incorporated UNICEF advertising for the first time in the football team shirt.
As part of its social management, the foundation has collaborated with other governmental and social entities to promote children's education, sports, culture and health. Among its main allies are UNICEF, UNESCO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), among others.
One of the main distinguishing features of FC Barcelona is its legal nature: it is one of the only four professional clubs in Spain (together with Real Madrid, Athletic Club and CA Osasuna) that is not a Sports Public Limited Company (SAD), retaining its origins its character of non-profit sports association, whose property lies with its partners. In this sense, the supreme governing body of the entity is the Assembly and the partners elect the president by direct universal suffrage.
In September 2009, FC Barcelona registered 170,000 members, a figure that places it as the second football club with the most associates in the world, behind SL Benfica - with 1000 more members - and ahead of Manchester United.15 It is also the Spanish club with the most subscribers: 86 314 in August 2009, ahead of the 70,000 of Real Madrid.
On June 16, 2011, the F.C. Barcelona comments on its website, through a notice about the institutional declaration that the club has 180,000 members.13 14 In that same season, the club achieved revenues close to € 51,000,000 for members and subscribers.
The fondness for the club has reached the point that a Belgian couple has given the name of Barça as a first name to their first child, who have also become a member of the club, on July 19, 2010 via Internet with the number 185.508. This is Barça Beeckman, born on April 26, 2010 in Sint-Truiden, city of Belgium. According to the website of F. C. Barcelona, Barça Beeckman is the first partner to be called as the team and they have no record that anyone else in the world is called that.
Currently, according to a German study, Barcelona is the club with the most followers in Europe.
F. C. Barcelona is one of the clubs with the greatest activity in the world. As of July 2014, the club had 152 004 rockers on 267 official clubs, spread across the five continents.
The first groupings of Barcelona fans were recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. As there is no record, there is no record of which was the first of these clubs, although historians usually point as such to Penya Esquerra, created in 1923277 In the Left Bar, on Aribau Street in Barcelona. 278 La Mosca, All-i-oli, Colón, La Escombra, Continental or Casal Barcelonista are other pioneer clubs, along with Peña Sagi-Barba and the Peña Els Tres (tribute to Piera, Sastre and Samitier), who are the first dedicated to Barcelona players. All of them disappeared during the Spanish Civil War.
The first club of the legally constituted FC Barcelona was named after the Solera bar, where it was created in 1944 under the impulse of former player Josep Samitier, along with the then young Antoni Ramallets, Mariano Martín, César Rodríguez and Gustavo Biosca, who would later defend the shirt of the first Barca team. Peña Solera acquired its definitive impulse shortly after, with the arrival of Nicolau Casaus, who opened several delegations of it in other Catalan towns. In 1972, under the presidency of Agustí Montal i Costa, the first World Trobada of Penyes Barcelonistes took place, a meeting that has been held annually since 1977.280 At that time, the number of clubs was around 150, a figure that suffered an exponential growth during the 1980s, exceeding a thousand in the late 1990s.
Main article: Football Club Rivalries Barcelona
FC Barcelona maintains a strong football rivalry with the Real Club Deportivo Español, team of the city of Barcelona.281 282 The Barcelona derby is the name that describes the matches between both clubs, the most representative of the city.282 Se they have faced 195 times, counting two European games played in the Fairs Cup, with a balance of 122 games won by Barcelona, against 44 of the Spanish. Xavi Hernández is the player with the most matches played, with a total of 32, while Argentine Lionel Messi is the top scorer, with 21 goals.
The rivalry was born in part by the continuous confrontations of yesteryear that, among other things, were strenuous and had good players.283 Another fact is because they were pioneers of football in Barcelona, the most representative, to this we must also add which historically consolidated as the two best teams in competitions organized by the Catalan Football Federation.
The culé team also disputes the so-called Spanish football classic against Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, one of the most important and important matches in the world. The audience exceeds 500 million viewers and more than 750 journalists are credited; It is often known by the specialized press as the Party of the century. On the balance sheet, Barcelona has won 96 games against Madrid's 95, out of 242 official matches. The first duel took place at the beginning of the 1900s, with a favorable result for Barcelona. The popularity and importance also lies in the amount of trophies won and the quality of players from both clubs. At national level, other teams such as Athletic Club and Atlético de Madrid stand out. Barcelona and Athletic are the two most successful clubs in the Copa del Rey and have played seven finals, with a balance of five wins and two losses for Barça.
At international level it highlights the confrontations with the Italian Associazione Calcio Milan. The aforementioned Italian club is internationally with which it has faced more opportunities with 19 meetings.