Guide to Barcelona

Supporters of FC Barcelona

Freitag, den 08. Oktober 2010 um 13:29 Uhr

Fc Barcelona Football Club

Supporters of FC Barcelona

The suporters of FC Barcelona have played an important role helping create Barcelona's current identity. Over the last 111 years since the club was formed the supporters have always been a big influence on the club, especially when it comes to the formation of the clubs Catalan identity.

From the Spain of Miquel Rivera to the  dictatorship of Franco, Cataluna and FC Barcelona had to suffer a lot under the harsh restrictions.A lot of supporters protested via the football club and therefore making FC Barcelona a symbol for progressivism and rebellion. It was during Franco's oppression that the relation between the supporters and the club became closer and the supporters decided to associate the club with Catalan nationalsim, therefore their actions worked well with the clubs motto: mes que un club.

Ever since Spain has became a Democracy in 1978 a lot of FC Barcelona supporter groups were formed, the most notable one has to be the Boixos Nois (wild boys).They were founded in 1982 by leftwing nationalists that desired an autonomous Cataluna, but during the mid 80's a lot of skinheads became invlolved with the club and they became known for facist seperatism. the group clashed a lot with authorities and was known for extreme violance behaviour, modeled after the British hooligans. At a lot of times there were mass scaled arrests, by then Boixos Nois was a mix of people wanting Catalan independence and neo-fascists, they were mostly involved in racist violence.

Their violant behavior was through the years appreciated by the clubpresidents becuase of the Catalan ideology behind their actions. But in 2003 when Laporta became club president he banned the Boixos Nois from Camp Nou causing for him to receive death threats and being attacked outside of his house.

Although they are formally banned and should not be allowed to get tickets they still attent Barcelona matches behind the northern goal burning the Spanish flag everytime Barcelonna and Real Madrid meet.

There are three Barcelona supporter memberships, First one is Socio which means club memberhsip, they have a lot of influence within the club and get to choose the new clubpresident and often get involved with making other important decisions.Second level is  the Penyes, which are fanclubs involved with theb socios and are knows for donating large sums of money.Last are the Cules they are not offical member of the clubs and are considered the ordinairy fans.

The arrival of Ronaldinho in 2003 was the start of a new era for Barcelona. At that time the club was not doing well, they were in Real Madrid's shadow and also had not been doing great financially. A lot of supporters were mad and the team needed to be renewed. With Ronaldinho Barcelona became one of the strongest sides in Europe and won the Champions league. At that time Ronaldinho was considered the best football player in the world.

What happened was that a lot more people became fan of Barelona, part of it was Laporta's media strategy to have a lot of Barcelona information on the internet in both English and Spanish.But also it was because the way the team played, easily and beautifull.

Barcelona's fans increased from 100.000 socios before Ronaldinho's arrival to 170.000 in 2009. It has increased 70%, this and a increasing amount of Penyes has made Barcelona one of the most popular clubs in the world.

As of today Barcelona is the second most famous club in Spain, 25% of the people support Barcelona while 33% supports Real Madrid.

The supporters have done a lot for Barcelona, helping to create it from a Catalan club to a symbol of rebellion to one of the most popular clubs in the world at the moment.And the support keeps on growing as Barclona keeps amazing people with their play, the rivalry with Real Madrid attracts  a lot of people to the football matches as well.

Certainly the Barcelona supporters will have a lot more to enjoy the coming years.

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