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The Football Club Barcelona (FC Barcelona and Catalan as official name) is a sports club in the city of Barcelona (Spain). It was founded as a football club on November 29, 1899 by twelve young amateur soccer players, led by the Swiss Joan Gamper. FC Barcelona is popularly known as Barca (abbreviation for the pronunciation of “Barcelona” in Catalan Central) and his followers as “Culès” (pronunciation of Catalan culers).

One of the main features of FC Barcelona is its sports. In addition to its main section, the football, the club has four other professional sections: the basketball, handball, hockey skates and futsal. Among the five sections professionals, FC Barcelona sum 27 European Cups.

In addition to these five sections professionals, the amateur club has sections in other sports: hockey, athletics, skating, ice hockey, baseball, volleyball, rugby and cycling.

FC Barcelona History

The Barcelona Football Club was founded on November 29, 1899 by a group of twelve football fans, convened by the Swiss Joan Gamper in a notice published in the journal Sports on October 22 of that year. Among the twelve founders of the club there were six Spaniards, three Englishmen, two Swiss and one German. The original name was chosen “Barcelona Football Club,” in English, and English was appointed Walter Wild as first president of the club for being the oldest of the present.

During 1910 the club took a big leap, both sporting and social: won two Spanish Cups and three cups of the Pyrenees, and reached the 3,000 partners, and in becoming one of the most popular in Catalonia. In those years was when I became popular nickname of “Culès” referring to the fans of the club. The team played their games in a field located in the streets of Barcelona Industry, which was filled masse when he played for Barcelona, and from the street was what they were seated, with his back, the fans are located at the top of the terraces. The image from the street was a large amount of rear (vehicles), therefore, to the Barcelona fans began to call them “Culès.” In that decade may also be noted that, in 1914, the club created its first sports section, the athletics.
Gamper figure in the museum of F. C. Barcelona.

The 1920s passed into history as the first golden age of the club. He spent 3,000 to 11,000 members and, in 1922, debuted the first major stadium of the club, Les Corts, with capacity for 30,000 spectators. They were years when the club won four Spanish Cups and, in 1929, the first Spanish league in history. It is also worth noting the incidents in 1925 when the government of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera closed the stadium Les Corts for six months and forced to resign as chairman Hans Gamper because of the whistling with the Barca fans who received the interpretation of Real Progress in the run-up a meeting. In this decade it is noteworthy that the club made progress in expanding its line of sports, and created sections of grass hockey, basketball and rugby.

The 1930s were of great crisis for the club. He started the decade with the suicide of Joan Gamper, probably due to the catastrophic economic situation in which it was plunged following the collapse of the stock market on Wall Street in 1929. [3] Subsequently, with the advent of the Second Republic was a decline in the number of partners that worsened with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. That year, in addition, the club president Josep Sunyol, who was political Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, was murdered at the hands of Franco’s troops in an ambush in the Sierra de Guadarrama. The club finished the decade with only 2500 partners.

During the 1940s the club was gradually overcoming its crisis and social sport. The club was taken by the authorities of the new Franco regime that henceforth and until 1953, appointed directly to the president of the club. The new guidelines españolizaron all sectors of the club, eliminating any connotation Catalan or Anglo-Saxon. In 1940 the club was renamed the “Football Club Barcelona” instead of “Barcelona Football Club,” and the shield was changed: the four bars were removed from the Catalan flag to put in place the Spanish flag, although in 1949, on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the club, the government authorized the return of the Catalan flag. In a sporting team is recompuso following the crisis in the war and ended up winning three Spanish leagues, a Spanish Cup and two Cups Eva Duarte. Moreover, in the 1940s were created between the new sports sections that highlighted the handball and hockey skates. All this contributed to that by the end of the decade, coinciding with the golden jubilee of the club, are exceeded 25,000 members.

The 1950s were one of the best decades of the club’s history, both in a sporting and social. The signing of Ladislao Kubala, in 1950, was the cornerstone on which we built a team that in that decade, got 3 Spanish League, 5 Spanish Cups, 4 Cups Eva Duarte, 3 Cup Duward, 1 Copa America, 2 Copa Martini & Rossi and 1 Small World Club Cup. The mass social partners grew to the 38,000 who left the small area of Les Corts, so we built a new stadium, the Nou Camp, opened in September 1957. Other highlights of that decade was the holding of the first democratic elections for the presidency of the club in 1953, though only men voted partners. That same year there was a dispute with Real Madrid for the signing of Alfredo Di Stefano.

It can be said that during the nearly 40 years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, when it banned political institutions and suppressed the Catalan club became one of the symbols of the anti-Franco in Catalonia and the resistance against centralism representing the Franco regime. The stadium’s F.C. Barcelona became one of the few public venues where fans were expressed freely, and the club became the best ambassador of Catalonia abroad. It was in those years when it was said that, because of its symbolism, the Barcelona was “more than a club”, delivered by the president Narcis Racing in his inauguration speech in 1968.

After the successes of the’50s came the crisis of the 1960s, where the football team only managed to win 2 Spanish Cups and 2 Cups. These titles, however, failed to compensate for the defeat in the final of the 1961 European Cup or the social crisis generated by the marches of Helenio Herrera and Luis Suarez to Inter Milan (with which the package would win two Italian Cups Europe). Nevertheless, the number of members increased from 39,000 to 55,000 during that decade.

During the 1970s continued the unstoppable rise of club members: it fell from the 55,000 to 80,000. These were the years when the Spanish football opened the doors to foreigners, and the club signed players such as Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Hugo Sotil, Krankl or Simonsen. The football team won in a Spanish league this decade, two King’s Cups, 1 Cup Winners’ and a Fairs Europe. In 1978 he became president Josep Lluis Nunez, who would lead the club the next two decades.

The 1980s were the large investments in the signing of big stars like Maradona, Schuster or Lineker, but the football team was only able to win a league in Spain, three King’s Cups, one Super Cup and two League Cups. At the European level is Recopas won two, but again lost a Cup final of Europe, disputed in Seville in 1986. Following a serious sporting and social crisis, in 1988 the club hired as coach Johan Cruyff, a fact that would mark the destiny of the club during the next decade. The most positive of the 1980s was the expansion of the Camp Nou, the increase in members, which exceeded the figure of 100,000, the economic revitalization of the club and the success of the sections of basketball, handball and hockey skates, who conquered important Spanish and European titles.

The decade of the 1990s was the best decade in the history of FC Barcelona. Were ten years of success for the club in all areas, both on the football field as in the sports sections. The football team, coached by Johan Cruyff, and with figures like Koeman, Guardiola, Stoichkov, Romario, Laudrup, Bakero or Zubizarreta won four consecutive league between 1991 and 1994, and May 20 1992 won the title of most valuable club : European Cup at Wembley stadium, before the Italian Sampdoria. During these years, the team played a great game and was popularly known as the Dream Team, imitating the terminology that was used with the national basketball team U.S. in the 1992 Summer Olympics. After the defeat in the final of the European Cup in 1994 compared to AC Milan by 4-0 in Athens, was closed by the era of the Dream Team and the situation of sports equipment deteriorated to the point of a deep social division between supporters of the coach, Johan Cruyff and supporters of the president, Josep Lluis Nunez. The traumatic farewell Cruyff created a great social crisis at the club, which did not disappear despite the titles achieved by Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal, and eventually leading to the resignation of Josep Lluis Nunez in 2000. The 1990s were also a great decade for the sports sections. The basketball team was consolidated into the elite of Spanish and European basketball, although it failed to win the European Cup, whose final disputed four times in that decade. The handball team became the best team handball in the world, won all the titles, among which six European Cups.

The 2000 can be divided clearly into two stages. Following the resignation of Nunez in 2000, was elected president Joan Gaspart. His three years as president resulted without football titles despite the investment of 180 million euros to be made on signings. The only hits the sports sections contributed, especially the basketball team who in 2003 managed to win the Euroleague. Following the resignation of Gaspart became president Joan Laporta, who faced a profound renewal of sports, economic and social development. It was moved to players like Ronaldinho, Eto’o, Deco and Rafael Marquez and the team, coached by Frank Rijkaard, he succeeded in winning two consecutive Spanish league and Champions League second, and the mass social club surpassed for the first time in history The figure of 140,000 members. This stage ended at the end of the 2007-2008 season, with the dismissal of then coach Frank Rijkaard (June 30, 2008) and submitting a censure motion against Joan Laporta and his board (of May 9 2008).