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FC Barcelona (Spain)

Futbol Club Barcelona, Barça

image by Eugene Ipavec, 03 Aug 2008; emblem adapted from Wikipedia

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 04 Mar 2007

Description
Emblem

See also:

Description

The famous Catalan club is well known all over the world and, as far as I know there exists a "copy" in Venezuela, using the same ensigns.

Brief history: The club was established in 1899 by Juan Gamper, a citizen of Switzerland, as a club for foreigners, mainly English. Some 20 years later the club made a turnover, being the stage for demonstrations of Catalan nationalism against the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. During the Spanish Civil War, the club's president was captured and executed. Many players remained abroad. As the club was to be abolished, supporters of general Franco were elected into the board. But being member of FC means being a Catalan, and the new board was infected by this "disease". At the end of Franco's rule, the fans finally were allowed to sing the hymn "La senyera" in FCs stadium.

Description of flag: 7 stripes with alternating blue and red starting with a blue. In the centre of the flag is the clubs logo. It is (according to German terms) an Italian shield divided per fess by a golden bar (in nowadays logo depicted as orange-brownish) with black capital letters "FCB". The chief is divided per pale, the right half shows the cross of St. George (red on a white field), the left half the Catalan colours (gold/yellow) with four red pales which are said to have the meaning of four bloody fingers). The base is shows the colour of the flag but vertical. In the middle of the base is an old fashioned brown football. The logo is adapted from clubs website. You can see a similar flag with green garlands, red dotted capitals "F.C.B." instead and with two white ribbons with golden inscriptions: "PENYA BARCELONISTA 1900"(top) and "TERRASSA"(bottom) on p.89 of source.

The flag I spotted in Tenerife had a white inscription superimposing the two bottom stripes: "FC BARCELONA". But I believe that this was a supporters version.

Source: Merian XLV no.3 (1992) p.86ff, German monthly for travellers

Klaus-Michael Schneider, 04 Mar 2007

Variants

The "Futbol Club Barcelona" (aka "Barca") was funded on 29 November 1899 by Hans Gamper. The colours of the club are blue and garnet ("blau i grana"). Gamper, who was from the Swiss canton of Ticino, used the colours of the arms of Ticino for the club colours.

FC Barcelona plays in the "Camp Nou" stadium, which can hold 109,815 spectators. The record of Barca is fairly impressive, as well as its lists of coaches and players. Barca won 15 Spanish Leagues, including four successive titles from 1991 to 1994; 24 King's Cup (National Spanish Cup); 4 European Cup Winners' Cup (C2) and 4 UEFA Cup (C3). On 20 May 1992, Barca won in Wembley stadium (England) its first Champion's League against Sampdoria (Italy).

The flags used by the supporters and "socis" (the 106,205 official members of the club) of Barca are based on the club colours and official shield. The shield is divided by an horizontal yellow stripe which bears F.C.B. in blue. The bottom of the shield is made of nine vertical blue and red stripes. The upper left half of the shield is made of a red cross on a white field, whereas the upper right half of the shield is made of nine vertical yellow and red stripes.

The upper part of the shield recalls the banner of arms of Barcelona, whereas the lower part of the shield recalles the club colours (see above).

The most commonly used flag is similar to the Catalan flag, but with blue instead of yellow stripes. Other flags are based on the club shield or on arrangements of blue, red and yellow squares.

images by Ivan Sache, 11 Oct 2003

Information on the history and record of the club can be found on the unofficial club page:

(Catalan)

(Spanish)

(English)

There are dozens of supporters and "penyas" (supporter's musical bands) webpages on the Internet, on which other kinds of flags might probably be found.

Sources:

Ivan Sache, 11 Oct 2003

I visited Barcelona recently on June 4, and saw on the Stadium Camp Nou, home to FC Barcelona, the most important soccer club in that city and one of the most important ones in the Spanish Top Soccer Division (La Liga), and photographed its flag. It has twelve equal horizontal stripes, starting blue, then red, with the CoA in the middle.

E.R., 30 Jun 2008

Are you sure? I think I only count nine in the photo, which would match earlier reports.

Eugene Ipavec, 03 Aug 2008

Emblem

adapted from Wikipedia, 03 Aug 2008