A Brief
History of the Club
 Known
familiarly as Barça (pronounced [barsa]), is a sports club
based in Catalonia, Spain. It is best known for its football team,
which was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English, and Spanish men
led by Joan Gamper. The club has become a Catalan institution, hence
the motto, Més que un club (More than a club).
They were founding members of La Liga in 1928, and, together with Real
Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, they have never been relegated from the top
division. The club were also the first La Liga champions, winning a
total of 18 La Liga, 24 Copa del Rey, 7 Supercopa de España, 2 UEFA Ch
ampions League, 4 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, 3 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and 2
European Super Cup trophies.
The Early Years 1899 - 1908
On
22 October 1899 Joan Gamper placed an advert in Los Deportes declaring
his wish to form a football club. A positive response resulted in a
meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on November 29. Eleven players attended:
Walter Wild, Lluís d'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier,
Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet, John Parsons and
William Parsons. As a result Foot-Ball Club Barcelona fc was born.
Several other Spanish football clubs, most notably Real Madrid and
Athletic Bilbao, also had British founders, and as a result they
initially adopted English-style names.Legend has it that Gamper was
inspired to chose the club colours, blaugrana, by FC Basel's crest.
However, the other Swiss teams Gamper played for, his home canton of
Zurich, and Merchant Taylors' School in Crosby, England have all been
credited with or claimed to be the inspiration. Barcelona fc quickly
emerged as one of the leading clubs of both Catalonia and every Spain,
competing in both the Campeonato de Cataluña and the Copa del Rey. In
1902, the club won its first trophy, the Copa Macaya, and also played
in the first Copa del Rey final, losing 2-1 to Club Vizcaya.
With
Gamper's seal (1908-1923)
In
1908 Joan Gamper became club president for the first time. Gamper took
over the presidency as the club was on the verge of folding. The club
had not won anything since the Campeonato de Cataluña of 1905 and its
finances suffered as a result. Gamper was subsequently club president
on five separate occasions between 1908 and 1925 and spent 25 years at
the helm. One of his main achievements was to help Barça acquire its
own stadium.On March 14, 1909, it moved into the Carrer Indústria, a
stadium with a capacity of 6,000. Gamper also launched a campaign to
recruit more club members and by 1922 the club had over 10,000. This
led to the club moving again, this time to Las Cortes, which
inaugurated in the same year. This stadium had an initial capacity of
20,000, later expanded to an impressive 60,000.Gamper also recruited
Paulino Alcántara, the club's all time top-scorer with 356 goals, and
in 1917 appointed Jack Greenwell as manager. This saw the club's
fortunes begin to improve on the field. During the Gamper era FC
Barcelona won eleven Campeonato de Cataluña, six Copa del Rey and four
Coupe de Pyrenées and enjoyed its first "golden age." As well as
Alcántara the Barça team under Greenwall also included Sagi-Barba,
Ricardo Zamora, Josep Samitier, Félix Sesúmaga and Franz Platko.
Rivera,Republic
and Civil War (1923-1939)
In
the middle of the glorious 1920s, Barcelona fc suffered of non-sporting
conflicts which were to mark the following decade. On 14 June 1925, the
crowd at a game in homage to the Orfeó Català jeered the Royal March, a
spontaneous reaction against Primo de Rivera's dictatorship. As a
reprisal the ground closed for six months, later reduced to three, and
forced Gamper to give up the presidency of the club. The club's
founder, after a period of depression brought on by personal and money
problems committed suicide on July 30, 1930.Although they continued to
have players of the standing of Josep Escolà, the club now entered a
period of decline, in which political conflict overshadowed sport
throughout society. Barça faced a crisis on three fronts: financial,
social, with the number of members dropping constantly, and sporting,
where although the team won the Campionat de Catalunya in 1930, 1931,
1932, 1934, 1936 and 1938, success at Spanish level (with the exception
of the 1937 disputed title) evaded them.A month after the civil war
began, Barca's left-wing president Josep Sunyol was murdered by
Francisco Franco's soldiers near to Guadalajara. In the summer of 1937,
the squad was on a tour in Mexico and USA in which it was received as
an ambassador of the fighting Second Spanish Republic. That travel
proved the financial saving of the club and also resulted in half the
team seeking exile in Mexico and France. On 16 March 1938, the fascists
dropped a bomb on the club's social club and caused big damages. A few
months later, Barcelona was under fascist occupation and as a symbol of
the 'undisciplined' Catalanism, the club, now down to just 3,486
members, was facing a number of serious problems.
Barca
1939-1974
After
the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan language and flag were banned and
football clubs were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. These
measures led to the club having its name forcibly changed to Club de
Fútbol Barcelona and the removal of the Catalan flag from the club
shield. During the Franco dictatorship one of the few places that
Catalan could be spoken freely was within the club's stadium.
In
1943, at Les Corts, for the first leg of the semi-finals of the Copa
del Generalísimo against Real Madrid, the result was a 3-0 win for
Barça. Before the second leg, Barca's players had a changing room
visit from Franco's director of state security. He 'reminded' them that
they were only playing due to the 'generosity of the regime'. Madrid
side won that game 11-1
Despite
the difficult political situation, Barca enjoyed considerable
success during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1945, with Josep Samitier as
coach and players like César, Ramallets and Velasco, they won La Liga
for first time since 1929. They added two more titles in 1948 and 1949.
In 1949 they also won the first Copa Latina. Coach Fernando Daucik and
Ladislao Kubala, regarded by many as the club's best ever player,
inspired the team to five different trophies including La Liga, the
Copa del Generalísimo, the Copa Latina, the Copa Eva Duarte and the
Copa Martini Rossi in 1952. In 1953 they helped the club win La Liga
and the Copa del Generalísimo again. The club also won the Copa del
Generalísimo in 1957 and the Fairs Cup in 1958.
With
Helenio Herrera as coach, a young Luis Suárez, the European Footballer
of the Year in 1960, and two influential Hungarians recommended by
Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor, Barcelona FC won
another national
double in 1959 and a La Liga/Fairs Cup double in 1960. In 1961 they
became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup
eliminatory, thus ending their monopoly of the competition. To little
avail, anyway- they lost 3-2 to Benfica in the final.
The
1960s were less successful for the club, with Real Madrid and Atlético
Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of the Camp Nou, finished
in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players.
However the decade also saw the emergence of Josep Fusté and Carles
Rexach and the club winning the Copa del Generalísimo in 1963 and the
Fairs Cup in 1966. Barça restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1-0
in the 1968 Copa del Generalísimo final at the Bernabéu.
The
club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona in 1974.
Cruyff's first pass
(1974-1978)
The
1973/74
season saw the
arrival, as player, of a new Barça legend – Johan Cruyff. Already an
established player with Ajax, Cruyff quickly won over the Barca
fans when he told the European press he chose Barça over Real Madrid
because he could not play for a club associated with Franco. He further
endeared himself when he chose a Catalan name, Jordi, for his son. He
helped the club win La Liga for the first time since 1960, along the
way defeating Real Madrid 5-0 at the Bernabéu. He was also crowned
European Footballer of the Year in his first year at the club.
The
stability years (1978-1988)
Josep
Lluís Núñez was elected president of Barca in 1978. His main
objectives were to establish Barça as a world-class sports club and to
give the club financial stability. Besides, in 1979 and 1982 the club
won two of four European Cup Winners' Cups won in the Núñez era.
In
June 1982 Diego Maradona was signed for a world record fee from Boca
Juniors. In the following season, under coach César Luis Menotti,
Barca and Maradona in an unforgettable final won the Copa del Rey,
beating Real Madrid. However Diego's time with Barça was short-lived
and he soon left for Napoli. At the start of the 1984/85 season, Terry
Venables was hired as manager and he won La Liga with stellar displays
by German midfielder Bernd Schuster. The next season, he took the team
to their second European Cup final, only to lose on penalties to Steaua
Bucureşti during a dramatic evening in Seville.
After
the 1986
World Cup, English top scorer Gary Lineker was signed along with
goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta but the team could not achieve success
while Schuster was excluded from the team. Terry Venables was
subsequently fired at the beginning of the 1987/88 season and replaced
with Luis Aragonés. That season finished with a rebellion of the
players against president Núñez known as the Motín del Hesperia and the
1-0 victory at the Copa del Rey final against Real Sociedad.
Dream
Team: rise and fall Barcelona fc (1988-1996)
In
1988 Johan Cruijff returned to the club as manager and assembled the
so-called Dream Team, named after the US basketball team that played at
the 1992 Summer Olympics hosted by Barca. He introduced players
like Josep Guardiola, José Mari Bakero, Txiki Beguiristáin, Jon Andoni
Goikoetxea, Gheorghe Hagi, Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Romário and
Hristo Stoichkov.
Under
Cruijff's guidance, Barca won four
consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in
both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup
final at Wembley with a legendary free kick goal from Dutch
international Ronald Koeman. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the
European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España. With 11
trophies, Cruijff became the club's most successful manager to date. He
also became the club's longest serving manager. However, in his final
two seasons, he failed to win any trophies (not to mention the
disastrous 4-0 defeat in the UEFA Champions League 1994 final against
AC Milan) and fell out with president Núñez, resulting in Cruijff's
departure.
Towards the centenary
(1996-2000)
Cruijff
was
briefly replaced by Bobby Robson who took charge of the club for a
single season in 1996/97. He is quoted as saying, "Catalonia is a
country and Barca is their army". He recruited Ronaldo from his
previous club, PSV Eindhoven and delivered a cup treble winning the
Copa del Rey, UEFA Cup Winners Cup and the Supercopa de España. Despite
his success, Robson was only ever seen as a short-term solution while
the club waited for Louis van Gaal to become available.
Like
Maradona, Ronaldo only stayed a short time and he left for Inter Milan.
However, new heroes such as Luís Figo, Giovanni Silva De Oliveira, Luis
Enrique Martínez and Rivaldo emerged and the team won a Copa del Rey/La
Liga double in 1998. In 1999 the club celebrated its 'centenari'
winning the Primera División title and Rivaldo became the fourth Barça
player to be awarded European Footballer of the Year. Despite this
domestic success, the failure to emulate Real Madrid in the UEFA
Champions League led to van Gaal and Núñez resigning in 2000.
Gaspart's decline period
(2000-2003)
The
departures of Núñez and Van Gaal were nothing compared to that of Luís
Figo. As well as club vice-captain, Figo had become a cult hero and was
considered by Catalans to be one of their own. So the Barcelona fc's
fans were distraught by Figo’s decision to join arch-rivals Real Madrid
and during subsequent visits to the Camp Nou Figo was given an
extremely hostile reception, including one occasion when a pig's head
was thrown at him from the crowd. The next three years saw the club in
decline and managers came and went, including a short second spell by
Louis van Gaal. President Gaspart did not inspire confidence off the
field either and in 2003 he and Van Gaal resigned.
The current era
(2003-present)
After
the disappointment of the Gaspart era, the combination of a new young
president Joan Laporta and a young new manager, former Dutch and AC
Milan star Frank Rijkaard, saw the club bounce back. On the field, an
influx international players, including Ronaldinho, Deco, Lionel Messi,
Samuel Eto'o, Rafael Márquez, combined with a nucleus of home grown and
Spanish players such as Carles Puyol, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and Víctor
Valdés led to the club's return to success.
In
the
2004/05
season, Barca were crowned champions of La Liga, and stars
Ronaldinho and Eto'o were voted first and third in the FIFA World
Player of the Year awards. Barça also won the Supercopa de España, with
a victory over Real Betis. In the UEFA Champions League 2004-05 Barça
were eliminated by Chelsea F.C. 5-4 on aggregate.
The
2005-06
season has been the pinnacle of the Laporta reign so far. In November
2005 Barcelona fc beat Real Madrid 3-0 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium
in a match where Ronaldinho was so impressive that after his second,
and Barça's third goal the Real Madrid fans felt compelled to applaud
him. This match also gave Frank Rijkaard his second victory at the
Bernabeu, making him the first Barça manager to win there twice.
Barca went on to win the championship of La Liga with ease, as well
as the Supercopa de España with a victory over city rivals Espanyol.
In
the UEFA Champions League that season, Barca beat Arsenal F.C.
to win the final on May 17, 2006. Trailing 1-0 to the English side,
with less than 15 minutes left and inspired by substitute Henrik
Larsson, they came back to win 2-1, for the club's first UEFA Champions
League victory in 14 years. This victory sparked scenes of jubilation
from Barca fans with ecstatic culers celebrating in the obvious
scene of La Rambla and members of Barca's fan clubs celebrating in
the Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid and all over the world.
They
took
part in the FIFA Club World Cup 2006, making it to the final against
Internacional, only to be beaten by a late goal.
Despite
being the favorites and starting strongly, Barca finished the
2006-07 in second place. A pre-season US tour was later blamed for a
string of injuries to key players, including leading scorer Eto'o and
rising Argentinean star Lionel Messi . There was open feuding as
Belletti publicly criticized coach Frank Rijkaard and star Ronaldinho.
On
28 September 2007, the club filed to RFEF demanding the La Liga title
of the 1936/37 season. After Franco's mutiny, leading to the outbreak
of the Civil War and the cessation of sporting activities, the
territories still largely controlled by the elected Spanish Republic
hosted their own tournaments. Barça resumed playing in the then-called
Mediterranean League and won it after 14 matches, finishing with 20
points. The action was taken after RFEF recognised Levante's win of the
cup Copa de la España Libre as a Copa del Rey trophy.
Rivalries
El Clásico
There
is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national
league, and this is particularly the case in La Liga, where the game
between Barca and Real Madrid CF is known as El Clásico. From
the start the clubs were seen as representatives of two rival countries
in Spain, Catalonia and Castile, as well as of the two cities
themselves.
The
rivalry
projects what many regard as the political and
cultural tensions felt between Catalans and the Castilians.
During
the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and (especially) of Francisco
Franco (1939 - 1975), all regional identities were openly suppressed
(e.g., the peripheral languages were officially banned). So Barca,
symbolising the Catalan people's desire for freedom, became more
than a club (més que un club) for them and one of their greatest
ambassadors. On the contrary, Real Madrid was widely seen as the
embodiment of the sovereign oppressive centralism and the fascist
regime. However, during the Spanish Civil War itself, members of both
clubs like Josep Sunyol and Rafael Sánchez Guerra suffered at the hands
of Franco supporters.
That
Franco's regime subsequently intervened to
ensure success for Real Madrid is widely alleged and believed, although
denied by many Real Madrid supporters.
During
the
1950s the
rivalry was exacerbated significantly when the clubs disputed the
signing of Alfredo Di Stéfano, who finally played for Real Madrid and
was key in the subsequent success achieved by the club. The 1960s saw
the rivalry reach the European stage when they met twice at the
knock-out stages of the European Cup.
As
nowadays
Barca and Real Madrid are the two biggest and most successful clubs in
the
league, the rivalry is renewed on an almost annual basis with both
teams often challenging each other for the league championship. The
latest Clásico was played in the Camp Nou and ended with a 1-0 win to
Real Madrid, with Julio Baptista scoring the winner.
Reial
Club Deportiu Espanyol, the 'royalist' team of the city, was founded
exclusively by Spanish fans of the game, on the contrary to the
multinational nature of Barca's original board. The club's first
home was in the wealthy district of Sarrià and was formerly known by
the Castilian spelling of its name, Real Club Deportivo Español.
Traditionally,
especially in the years following the Spanish Civil War, Espanyol were
seen as a club who cultivated a kind of compliance to the central
authority unlike Barca which for the majority of Catalans
symbolised the ideal of autonomy. However, the Blanquiazules in 1995
attempted to have a go at getting their own part in Catalanism by
'Catalanizing' their name in a move that generally did not earn them
much respect at the Camp Nou.
Sponsorship
Barca's
attitude to shirt sponsorship is unique. Selectively without a
commercial message on its shirts, on 14 July 2006 the club announced a
five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo
on their shirts. The agreement will see them donating US$1.9
million per year to UNICEF (0.7 per cent of its ordinary income) to the
BarcaFoundation, and rejecting significant money offers to be
the first shirt sponsor of the football team.
The
club
has done
this in order to set up international cooperation programmes for
development, supports the UN Millennium Development Goals and has made
a commitment to UNICEF’s humanitarian aid programs through the donation
of one and a half million euro for the next five years.
Companies
that Barca currently has sponsorship deals with include :
*
Nike -
Official sponsors * Coca-Cola - Official sponsors * TV3 -
Official sponsors * Audi - Official sponsors * Telefónica - Official
sponsors * Estrella Damm - Official sponsors * La Caixa - Official
sponsors * bwin - Official Betting Partner * MediaPro - Official
provider
Honours
Domestic competitions
* La Liga
Champions: 18 o 1929, 1945, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1959,
1960, 1974, 1985, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006 * Copa
del Rey: 24 (record) o 1910, 1912, 1913, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1928,
1942, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1981, 1983,
1988, 1990, 1997, 1998
*
Supercopa de
España: 7 o 1983, 1991,
1992, 1994, 1996, 2005, 2006 * Copa de la Liga: 2 (record) o 1983, 1986
International competitions
*
UEFA Champions League: 2 o 1992, 2006 * UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 4
(record) o 1979, 1982, 1989, 1997 * European Super Cup: 2 o 1992, 1997
* Inter-Cities Fairs Cup: 3 (record) o 1958, 1960, 1966 * Inter-Cities
Fairs Cup Trophy Play-Off: 1 o 1971 * Copa Latina: 2 o 1949, 1952
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