FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Futbol Club Barcelona is a Catalan sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is best known for its football team. It was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English, and Catalan footballers 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 Primera División. The club were also the first La Liga champions and they are the current champions of both Spain and Europe

The club's main stadium is the Camp Nou and the fans of FC Barcelona are known as culers or culés. In September 2006, the number of socis (club members/owners) reached 151,127, while in June 2006 the number of penyes (officially-registered supporter clubs) reached 1782 worldwide.



The club also operates a reserve team, FC Barcelona B, a youth team FC Barcelona C and four other professional sports teams, Winterthur FCB, FC Barcelona-Cifec, FC Barcelona Futsal and FC Barcelona Sorli Discau that compete at basketball, handball, futsal and rink hockey respectively. There are also a number of prominent amateur sports teams that compete at rugby union, women's basketball, women's football and wheelchair basketball. These include FCB Rugby, UB-Barça and FC Barcelona-Institut Guttman. Other amateur teams represent the club at ice hockey, athletics, baseball, cycling, field hockey, figure skating, and volleyball.