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Futbol Club Barcelona, known familiarly as Barça (pronounced [ˈbaɾsə]), is a Spanish sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia. It is best known for its football team, which was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English, and Catalan men 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, winning a total of 18 La Liga, 24 Copa del Rey, 7 Supercopa de España, 32 Joan Gamper Trophy, 2 UEFA Champions League, 4 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, 3 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and 2 European Super Cup trophies.
The club's main stadium is the Camp Nou and the fans of FC Barcelona are known as culers or culés. In Spain, about 25.7% of the population are said to be Barça supporters[1]. In June 2007, the number of socis (club members/owners) reached 156,366, 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, and four other professional sports teams, AXA FC Barcelona, FC Barcelona, FC Barcelona Futsal and FC Barcelona Sorli Discau that compete at basketball, handball, futsal and rink hockey respectively. Until 2007 there was also a youth team, FC Barcelona C.
There are also a number of prominent amateur sports teams that compete at rugby union, women's football and wheelchair basketball. These include FCB Rugby and FC Barcelona-Institut Guttman. Other amateur teams represent the club at ice hockey, athletics, baseball, cycling, field hockey, figure skating, and volleyball.
During the 2006-07 season, FC Barcelona was the third richest club in the world with a revenue of €291.1 million
 Rivalries
El Clásico There is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national league, and this is particularly the case in La Liga, where the game between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF is known as El Clásico. From the start the clubs were seen as representatives of two rival countries in Spain, Catalonia and Castile, as well as of the two cities themselves. The rivalry projects what many regard as the political and cultural tensions felt between Catalans and the Castilians. During the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and (especially) of Francisco Franco (1939 - 1975), all regional identities were openly suppressed (e.g., the peripheral languages were officially banned). So FC Barcelona, symbolising the Catalan people's desire for freedom, became more than a club (més que un club) for them and one of their greatest ambassadors. On the contrary, Real Madrid was widely seen as the embodiment of the sovereign oppressive centralism and the fascist regime. However, during the Spanish Civil War itself, members of both clubs like Josep Sunyol and Rafael Sánchez Guerra suffered at the hands of Franco supporters. That Franco's regime subsequently intervened to ensure success for Real Madrid is widely alleged and believed, although denied by many Real Madrid supporters.
During the 1950s the rivalry was exacerbated significantly when the clubs disputed the signing of Alfredo Di Stefano, who finally played for Real Madrid and was key in the subsequent success achieved by the club. The 1960s saw the rivalry reach the European stage when they met twice at the semi-final stage of the European Cup.
As nowadays FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two biggest and most successful clubs in the league, the rivalry is renewed on an almost annual basis with both teams often challenging each other for the league championship. The latest Clasico was played in the Camp Nou and ended with a 1-0 win to Real Madrid, with Julio Baptista scoring the winner.
El derbi barcelonès
Camp Nou on matchdayReial Club Deportiu Espanyol, the 'royalist' team of the city, were founded exclusively by Catalan and Spanish fans of the game, on the contrary to the multinational nature of FC Barcelona's original board. The club's first home was in the well-off district of Sarrià and was formerly known with the Castilian spelling of its name, Real Club Deportivo Español. Traditionally, especially in the years following the Spanish Civil War, Espanyol were seen as a club who cultivated a kind of compliance to the central authority unlike FC Barcelona which for the majority of Catalans symbolised the ideal of autonomy. However, the Blanquiazules in 1995 attempted to have a go at getting their own part in Catalanism by 'Catalanizing' their name in a move that generally did not earn them much respect at the Camp Nou.
Sponsorship
 FC Barcelona attitude to shirt sponsorship is unique. Selectively without a commercial message in its shirts, on 14 July 2006 the club announced a five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo on their shirts. The agreement will see FC Barcelona donating US$1.9 million per year to UNICEF (0.7 per cent of its ordinary income) to the FC Barcelona Foundation, and rejecting significant money offers to be the first shirt sponsor of the football team. The club has done this in order to set up international cooperation programmes for development, supports the UN Millennium Development Goals and has made a commitment to UNICEF’s humanitarian aid programs through the donation of one and a half million euro for the next five years.
Companies that FC Barcelona currently has sponsorship deals with include :
Nike - Official sponsors
Coca-Cola - Official sponsors TV3 - Official sponsors Audi - Official sponsors Telefonica - Official sponsors Estrella Damm - Official sponsors La Caixa - Official sponsors bwin - Official Betting Partner MediaPro - Official provider Domestic competitions
  La Liga Champions: 18 1929, 1945, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1959, 1960, 1974, 1985, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006  Copa del Rey: 24 (record) 1910, 1912, 1913, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1942, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1988, 1990, 1997, 1998  Supercopa de España: 7 1983, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2005, 2006 Copa de la Liga: 2 (record) 1982, 1986 International competitions
 UEFA Champions League: 2 1992, 2006  UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 4 (record) 1979, 1982, 1989, 1997  European Super Cup: 2 1992, 1997 Copa Latina: 2 1949, 1952  Inter-Cities Fairs Cup : 3 (record) 1958, 1960, 1966 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Trophy Play-Off: 1 1971 Current squad
Current Technical Staff
 President Joan Laporta Director of Football Txiki Begiristain Head Coach Frank Rijkaard Assistant Coach Johan Neeskens 2nd assistant Coach Eusebio Sacristán Goalkeeping Coach Juan Carlos Unzué Academy director José Ramón Alexanko B Team Head Coach Josep Guardiola Selected former presidents
Walter Wild (1899-01)
Bertomeu Terradas (1901-02) Paul Haas (1902) Arthur Witty (1902-05) Joan Gamper (1908-09, 1910-13, 1917-19, 1921-23, 1924-25) Otto Gmeling (1909) Josep Sunyol (1935-36) Enrique Piñeyro (1940-43) Agustí Montal (1969-77) Josep Lluís Nuñez (1978-2000) Joan Gaspart (2000-2003) Joan Laporta (2003-Present) Special Thanks to wikipedia
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