History of FC Barcelona

Club Details:

  • Full name: Futbol Club Barcelona
  • Club Nickname: Barça
  • Supporters Nicknames: Culés
  • Founded: 1899
  • Ground: Camp Nou (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)
  • Capacity: 98,787
  • President: Joan Laporta
  • Head Coach: Josep Guardiola

Championships:

  • La Liga (Spanish Major League Soccer) Champions: 1929, 1945, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1959, 1960, 1974, 1985, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006
  • Copa Del Rey (Spanish Cup): 1910, 1912, 1913, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1942, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1988, 1990, 1997, 1998
  • European Cup (Champions League): 1992, 2006
  • European Cup Winners'Cup (abolished in 1998/1999): 1979, 1982, 1989, 1997
  • UEFA Cup (formerly known as Inter-Cities Fairs): 1958, 1960, 1966
  • Other Honours: European Super Cup, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Trophy Play-Off, Copa Latina (Latin Cup), Supercopa de España (Spain's Super-Cup), La Liga del Mediterráneo (Mediterranean League), Copa Macaya/Catalan Cup, Copa Catalunya (Catalonia Cup), Copa de la Liga (Spain's La Liga Cup)

About FC Barcelona:

FC Barcelona is one of the world’s most well known football clubs and was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper. To this day the club is owned and president is elected by the club members who numbered 156,366 in 2007 with 1,828 “penyes” (officially-registered supporters clubs) also established. The club has always been the symbol of Catalonia, the state of which Barcelona is capital.

As well as the football team which the club is based around they also fund other sports, 4 professional sections: Basketball, handball, Roller Hockey and Indoor football, 9 Non-professional sections: Guttmann-FC Barcelona (Wheelchair Basketball), athletics, cycling, rugby, Baseball, volleyball, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey and Figure Skating, and 1 Associated section: and CVB Barça (Women’s Volleyball) but it’s the FC Barcelona football team that is most instantly recognized around the world.

Founding members of Spain’s “La Liga” in 1928, Barcelona have never been relegated from the First Division and are also the inaugural winners of the “La Liga” title. In 2005/2006 they completed the double of La Liga champions and European Cup champions making them champions of both Spain and Europe.

Barcelona have long held onto their tradition of not allowing sponsors’ logos on their famous shirts but in the summer of 2006 they announced a five year deal with the charity Unicef to wear their logo prominently displayed on the team jerseys, as well as FC Barcelona donating a reputed $2m a year to the Unicef cause.

Barcelona have a reputation for playing attractive football stretching back throughout their history but they have often failed to live up to expectations in European competition as their relatively meager haul of only two European Cups, both won in the past fifteen years, shows. Regardless of this, they have always attracted some of the best footballers in the world to the formidable Nou Camp and the current squad is no exception, boasting Cameroon star Samuel Eto’o, Argentina’s “new Maradona” Lionel Messi and French striker Tierry Henry among others.

Please click here for a complete history of FC Barcelona.