Futbol Club Barcelona also known as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça,is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Founded in 1899 by a group
of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led byJoan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of
Catalan culture andCatalanism,
hence the motto "Més que
un club" (More than a
club). Unlike many other football clubs, the supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the
world's second-richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual
turnover of $613 million and the third most valuable, worth $2.6 billion.The
official Barcelona anthem is the "Cant del Barça", written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs.
Barcelona are the most successful club in
Spain, in terms of overall official titles won (83). Barcelona were
ranked first in the 'All-Time Club World Ranking' by IFFHS,
on December 31, 2009,and are also currently placed on top of the UEFA club
rankings.A recent study by Goal.com found
Barcelona to be the most successful club in the UEFA Champions League(since
the current format was adopted in 1992), ahead of AC Milan.Barcelona are the current Spanish football champions and have won 22 La Liga, 26 Copa del Rey, 11 Supercopa de España,
3 Copa Eva Duarte and
2 Copa de la Liga trophies,
as well as being the record holder for the latter four competitions. In international
club football, Barcelona have won fourUEFA Champions League,
a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cup,
fourUEFA Super Cup, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cup
and
a record twoFIFA Club World Cup trophies.The club has a long-standing
rivalry withReal Madrid;
matches between the two teams are referred to as "El Clásico".
Barcelona is one of the most
supported teams in the world, and has the largest fanbase among all sports
teams on all major social networks (with over 45 million fans on Facebook, around 10 million followers on Twitter, and more than 6 million on Google+). Barça's players have
won a record number of Ballon d'Or awards (10), as well as a record
number of FIFA
World Player of the Year awards
(7). In 2010, the club created history when three players who came through its
youth academy (Messi, Iniesta & Xavi)
were chosen as the three best players in the world, having bagged the top spots
at the FIFA Ballon d'Or,
an unprecedented feat for players from the same football school.
Barcelona is also the only
European club to have played continental football every season since 1955, and
one of three clubs never to have been relegated from La Liga, along with Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid. In 2009, Barcelona became the first
Spanish club to win thecontinental
treble consisting of La Liga, Copa del Rey,
and the Champions
League. That same year, it also became the first football club ever
to win six out of six competitions in a single year, thus completing the sextuple, comprising the aforementioned treble
and theSpanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.
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