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Barcelona Football Club

Barcelona football club was founded in 1899. In addition to being one of the most famous football clubs in the world, the club has three other professional sports: those of basketball , handball and hockey football .

Barcelona is one of the most popular teams in the country of Spain with 25.7% of all football supporters according to a study conducted in May 2007 by the Center Sociological Research, with more national titles in Spain and in Europe than any other Spanish football club, with 23 Spanish league title , 27 Spanish Cups , two Cups League , 11 Super Cups Spain and 3 Eva Duarte Cups and internationally 2 Club World Cups , 5 European Cups , 4 European Cup Winners Cup , 3 Fairs Cup and 4 Super Cup . 20 21 FC Barcelona has won 84 official titles, which makes it the team with the most titles in Spain.



In 2009 the club won every football match played ( League , Cup , Spain Super Cup , Champions League , European Super Cup and Club World Cup ), going down in history as the first team in the world to achieve a " sextet " , winning six official titles in the same year.

In 2015 the club, under the command of Luis Enrique won the treble ( Spanish League , Copa del Rey and Champions League in the same year) for the second time in its history, as it had done in 2009 , becoming the first European team to achieve such a feat.

Barcelona FC is popularly known as Barça (short for the pronunciation of Barcelona in the central Catalan ) and its supporters as. The Catalans term is also a reference to its teams colours.

Barcelona were succesful from the begining winning their first title at the of the decade.

Between 1910 and 1920 Barcelona improved a great deal both on and of the pitch, they won two Spanish Cups and three trophies of the Pyrenees, becoming the bigest catalan football team.

FC Barcelona in 1928 .

The 1920’s established Barcelona as a leading footballing force in Spain, their support grew and they moved to their first stadium in 1922 Camp de Les Corts, with a capacity of 30000 spectators to watch Barcelona play. During this period Barcelon won four Cups in Spain. During the 1920`s Barcelona extending from just being a football club but also founded basketball, hockey and rugby teams.

After the wall street crash in 1929 the whole world suffered a great depression, Barcelona was not immune to the effect and suffered greatly during the 1930`s

After the difficulties of the previous decade, the 1930`s saw Barcelona`s fortunes on the rise once again, the club was taken over by the Spanish government, led by the dictator Franco, Barcelona remained in the care of the Spanish government until 1953. During this period the club shield was modified from that of the Catalan flag to the Spanish flag, until 1949, Barcelona`s golden jubilee when the Spanish regime allowed the club to revert back to the original design. After the Spanish civil war Barcelon won the league on three occasions and one Spanish Cup as well as two Eva Duarte Cups during the 1940`s.

The 1950`s was another great decade for Barcelona, The purchase of Ladislao Kubala lay a foundation to a great Barcelona team, that during the 1950`s won the Spanish league three times, four Eva Duarte Cups, Generalissimo Cups, 2 Copa Martini & Rossi, 3 Durward Cup, one Copa America & 1 Small Club World Cup. The success on the pitch saw the popularity of Barcelona grew even greater and in 1957 Barcelona built their new stadium the Nou Camp.

After the glory of the 1950`s the 1960`s was disappointing for Barcelona, with only two wins in the Generalissimo Cup and two Fairs Cups. 1961 also saw Barcelon lose the European cup final, defeated by Italian giants Inter Milan .

Barcelona continued to rise as one of the worlds big players in the football world, during the 70`s the Spanish league started to attract foreign footballers, Barcelona`s foreign imports included Johan Cruyff , Hansi Krankl, Allan Simonsen, Johan Neeskens and Hugo Sotil. During this period Barcelona continued to add trophies to their trophy cabinet. In 1978 Jose Luis Nunez became the new president of Barcelona, he would remain the club president for the next two decades.

The investment in players continued in the 1980`s with the purchase of Argentinean ace Diago Maradona, prolific goal scorer Garry Lineker and Schuster. Although big investments in new players, Barcelona struggled to translate this to silver ware winning one league title three Spanish cups, two league cups and one super cup. In European competitions Barcelona won two cup winners cups. In 1986 Barcelona lost the European cup final against Steaua Bucharest. In 1988 Barcelona appointed former player Johan Cruyff, that would lead to the 90`s becoming a golden era for Barcelona football club. During the 1980`s Barcelona also extended the Nou Camp giving the stadium a capacity of 100,000.

The 1990`s gave Barcelona a decade of success, both on the pitch as well as Barcelona growing as business of the football field. Managed by Johan Cruyff Barcelona won four league titles in a row, and in 1992 Barcelona beat Italian champions Sampdoria in the European cup final at Wembley stadium. During this period the Barcelona squad included a star studded cast of players that included Bakero, Romario, Koeman, Stoichkov , Zubizarreta, Guardiola and Laudrup. The traumatic farewell Cruyff created a great crisis at the club, despite the titles won by Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal , Jose Luis Nunez resigned in 2000.

The year 2000 can be clearly divided into two stages. Following the resignation of Núñez in May 2000, Joan Gaspart was elected president . His three years as president were settled without football titles despite the investment of 180 million euros in new signings.

The new club president Gaspart worked hard to renew Barcelona`s fortunes. He signed players like Ronaldinho , Eto'o , Rafael Márquez and Deco with the team to be coached by Frank Rijkaard . Barcelona was able to gain two consecutive Spanish League titles and their second Champions League. Frank Rijkaard left the club in 2008, after two years without winning the title.

With the arrival of Pep Guardiola at the helm at Barcelona they again made history in the 2008/09 season after winning the treble (League, Cup and Champions League). Guardiola in his debut in the First Division as coach achieved what Frank Rijkaard and Johan Cruyff failed in several years. With the victory in the final in the champions league beating Manchester United (2-0) in the final in Rome.

At the start of the 2009-10 season, the team won the Supercopa of Spain by beating Athletic Club in both legs. They also won the European Super Cup by beating Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0. The team led by Josep Guardiola , after winning the Club World Cup in late 2009 to Estudiantes 2-1, definitely made history of football, to get the 6 official titles in a season. Barcelona won in May 2010 their second consecutive league title with a total of 99 points, a figure that no other club had reached before.

On February 5, 2011 the team achieved a new record to be able to get their sixteenth consecutive win in the league, against Atletico Madrid , exceeding that of Real Madrid that got to have 15 wins in a row during the 1960-1961 season.

On 2nd March of 2011 Barcelona set another record defeating Valencia , giving them 20 consecutive games unbeaten away from home even surpassed the club record of the Real Sociedad which had achieved in the 1978/79 season, 19 games unbeaten.

The 2010-11 season would end with Barcelona as champion of the Spanish League for the third consecutive year (21st title for the club) and the UEFA Champions League (4th title).

After gaining the Supercopa of Spain, European Super Cup and World Club Cup in the 2011-12 season, Guardiola finished his tenure at the club with 14 titles won from a possible 18.

The 2012-13 campaign starts with change on the managers bench, that of Tito Vilanova taking over from Josep Guardiola. The season continuesd with promising results but fail to pass semifinals in the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, but were proclaimed champions of Spain. After a season on the bench, the 19 July of 2013 Vilanova decides to leave the club because of his cancer which had afflicted him several months ago and was replaced by Gerardo Martino .

The FC Barcelona brings together members and fans of all political ideologies, religious beliefs and geographical origins. However, according to most historians and sociologists, the enormous social mass of the club historically has not responded to exclusively sporting grounds, but also the representative character that, for many fans, has had and has the club in the social and political arena.

The club considered the most famous social entity Catalonia abroad, has met along his history, for many fans, a representative function of defending the Catalan values that the club has publicly defended on many occasions, as says the British journalist Jimmy Burns in his book club, the passion of a people . The club always has meaning for activities and gestures in defense of Catalan culture and language, which has been the official language of all documents of the club, except for the years of Franco's dictatorship. Except in the same period, the team captain also has always worn the Catalan flag as distinctive bracelet. The club also has also expressed formally and publicly in support of claims for greater autonomy for Catalonia and signed manifestos of support for autonomy statutes both in 1932 and in 1979 and 2006.

The first team of FC Barcelona was one of the few teams that did not carry advertising in the central area of the shirt up to the agreement in the year 2006 with UNICEF . This form of sponsorship is unusual in professional football since not receive any financial benefit in exchange for wearing the logo, on the contrary, it spends one and half million euros annually promoted and organized by Unicef projects. Yes receives substantial income for wearing the logos of Nike on the shirt and pants, and logo TV3 in one of the sleeves of his shirt. In season 2003 - 2004 , the first team led advertising Universal Forum of Cultures , which took place in 2004 in Barcelona , in a shirt sleeve. The teams of basketball, handball and roller hockey itself look advertising in the central space of their shirts.

FC Barcelona signed a contract with Nike in 1998, it was the manufacturer of sports equipment from the club and is valid from 1998-99 league season and during the next ten years that will bring a total of 21 000 million of pesetas in the overall agreement for the club. The July 21, 1998, during the pre-season in the Netherlands, FC Barcelona, first wore his new strip from Nike , with the Dutch outfit AGOVV Apeldoorn , in the first friendly match of the preseason FC Barcelona won 2-1.

The club and Nike announced in October 2006 the extension of the contract to last for a further five years until 2013, including the possibility of extending it another five years until 2018. The monetary terms of the deal were that FC Barcelona would receive 150 million euros global fixed spread over 30 million euros per year plus sums awards and royalties based on the conquered titles and other items.

In addition FC Barcelona get all the income from merchandising officer of its products sold in stores, which amount to 35 million euros per year. With the extension of this contract, to exercise the right of first refusal Nike, was discarded the offer made Puma to dress sportily to FC Barcelona, from June 1, 2008 and whose bid was 127.5 million euros overall in five years, progressively distributed as follows: 22 million the first year, 23.5 million the second year, 25 million the third year, 27 million in the fourth year and 30 million in the fifth year. 129

In December 10, 2010, it was announced an agreement with Qatar Foundation for which Barcelona could receive 170 million euros for wearing the logo of the foundation. The contract would be broken down as follows: The fixed part would be the perception of 15 million euros in 2010/11 by commercial rights, yet carrying the logo on the shirt; linear over 30 million euros each year in five seasons from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2016, in the period that the Qatar Foundation logo and appear on the club shirt. The variable part would be 5 million euros, as a bonus, depending on the titles won during the agreement.

The stadium of FC Barcelona is the Nou Camp, opened in 1957, it has a capacity of 99,354 spectators.

The first team plays in the First Division of Spain , and is one of only three clubs that have always competed in the top Spanish league since its inception, the other two clubs who hold this honor are Athletic Club and Real Madrid .

FC Barcelona holds the record of being the only team in European football who participated uninterruptedly in the continental competitions since its inception in 1955 . It is also the team with the most titles in the defunct Cup Winners Cup (4 titles) and the one with more wins in the Cup of Spain in its different denominations (27 titles).

FC Barcelona has had since then with various players, joining the Catalan club have won the most prestigious individual trophies in world football.

Five players of the club were awarded the prize FIFA World Player of the Year that credited as the best players in the world ( Romario , Ronaldo , Rivaldo , Ronaldinho on two consecutive occasions, and Lionel Messi ) and six were awarded the Golden Ball that credited as the best European football players ( Luis Suarez , Johan Cruyff three times, Hristo Stoitchkov , Rivaldo , Ronaldinho and Messi who made history at the club by being the first squad to get it.

FC Barcelona has historically been one of the leading clubs in Spain along with Real Madrid , these clubs have often had the best players in Spain, and contributed greatly to the Spanish national football team . The FC Barcelona player who has played more games with the national team's midfielder Xavi Hernandez who has played 133 games, only being surpassed by Iker Casillas .

FC Barcelona has had a total of 55 football coaches throughout its history.

FC Barcelona has a strong football rivalry with the Real Club Deportivo Spanish team, the city of Barcelona . The Barcelona derby is the name that describes matches between the two clubs, the most representative of the city. They have met on 195 occasions, counting two European matches played in the Fairs Cup , with a record of 110 games won by Barcelona, vs. 44 wins for Real Club Deportivo.

The team FC Barcelona also dispute the so-called classic of Spanish football against Real Madrid Football Club , one of the most important and transcendental world games. The audience exceeds 500 million spectators worldwide and more than 750 journalists are accredited. Barcelona has won 90 games against the 92 of Madrid, a total of 230 official meetings. The first meeting occurred at the beginning of the decade of the 1900s , with a favorable outcome for Barcelona. The popularity and importance also lies in the amount of trophies won and the quality of players of both teams.

Internationally highlights the clashes with several English clubs, Manchester United , Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC , and in Italy with AC Milan . With the exception of Chelsea, the balance is positive in other international conflicts, with the Milan, the club at which he faced more opportunities with 19 meetings between the clubs.

FC Barcelona has been promoting in recent years their female sections, given the growing participation of women in sport, and the professionalization of competitive structures. Women's sections of the club are football, basketball , athletics, skating, volleyball and hockey.