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 presidents elected by the socis (club members) who numbered
over 150, 000 in 2006 with 1782 penyes (officially-registered supporters
clubs) also established.
As well as the football team which the club is based around they also
fund other sports including basketball (Winterthur FCB), handball (FC
Barcelona-Cifec) and ice hockey (FC Barcelona Sorli Discau) but it’s the
football team FC Barcelona that is most instantly recognised around the
world.
Founder members of La Liga in 1928, Barcelona have never been relegated
from the Primera División 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 meagre 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 Brazilian World Player of the Year
Ronaldinho, Cameroon star Samuel Eto’o, Argentina’s “new Maradona”
Lionel Messi and Portuguese midfielder Deco.