The Football Club Barcelona, popularly known as Barça, is a multi-sports entity based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
It was founded as a football club on November 29, 1899, and officially registered on January 5, 1903.
Both the club and its fans are called “culers” (pronounced culés), and also, in reference to their colors, “azulgranas” or “blaugranas”, as it appears in their anthem, the “cant del Barça” (which in its second line mentions “som la gent blaugrana”). In its Barcelona fan service office, service is provided in the club’s three official languages – which are Catalan, Spanish, and English.
At an institutional level, it is one of the four professional soccer clubs in the country whose legal entity is not a sports corporation (S.A.D.), since its ownership falls on its more than 143,000 members. It shares another caveat with the Athletic Club and the Real Madrid Football Club by participating without interruption in the highest category of the National Professional Football League, the First Division of Spain, since its establishment in 1929. It also has the accolades of having been the first historical champion of the competition, its second club with the most titles, and the one with the highest score in a single edition.
Adding national and international tournaments, it is the second most successful Spanish club, and at the national level it dominates the record with 77 championships, and at the international level it holds 22 trophies, ranking second in Europe overall. It occupies the same position as the multi-sports club with the most European cups, counting all its professional sections (behind CSKA Moscow with 46).
According to statistics compiled by the IFFHS, F.C. Barcelona is the best European and world football team of the first and second decades of the 21st century and leads the global ranking of the century with 5,228 points with a difference of 365 points over the second place (Real Madrid C.F.). It is also the football team that has appeared on the FIFA World Player podiums the most times (19), and the Ballon d’Or (34).
One of the main characteristics of F.C. Barcelona is its multi-sport nature. It is distinguished for being one of the most awarded multi-sports institutions where football, basketball, handball, and hockey sections each stand out – all of them with extensive European honors. It is the first European club to be awarded Continental Champion in both the men’s and women’s branches, and the first to achieve a triplet with both. Likewise, Olympic medalists who have represented the Blaugrana entity have won eleven gold medals, twenty-three silvers, and twenty-eight bronzes in various sporting events.
Nine former members of the club were included in the International Football Hall of Fame, a project dedicated to preserving the memory of relevant figures in the history of football. These include Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Ricardo Zamora, Luís Figo, Ronaldo Nazário, Hristo Stoichkov, Pep Guardiola and Ronaldinho de Assis, who are joined by László Kubala as “Dean” of special importance.
Another distinctive attribute is its social mass of members 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 the club’s social events and have greater participation in administrative activities, which strengthens the links between the clubs. In 2022, it had approximately 143,083 members. There are also 1,273 F.C. Barcelona supporting clubs throughout the world.
Its two historical rivals are the Real Madrid Football Club – against which it plays “El Clásico” – and the Real Club Deportivo Espanyol, with whom it faces in the “Barcelonian Derby.” The El Clásico match features the greatest rivalry and interest in the world of football.
22% of football fans surveyed in 2021 in Spain by the market statistics and opinion portal Statista name F.C. Barcelona as the second most popular club. The number of supporters favors it having an estimated market value in just over 3,500 million euros – in 2020-21 its income amounted to $631 million without counting player transfers, although in recent decades it has had a strong debt estimated at $135 million as of 2021 according to the club, under a loan of $815 million from the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
A good indicator of the critical economic situation of the club is reflected in its net worth, which is an indicator of the club’s own resources. It is the accounting measure of its value – that is, the funds that, together with external resources, finance its needs for the development of its activities. As of 2021, it is in the red at $451 million, while its working capital is negative $553 million, which is why at the beginning of 2021 it requested a waiver from banks and financial funds to avoid bankruptcy.
There are 2 main stadiums in Barcelona:
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Barcelona theaters and entertainment
Barcelona administrative division
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