FC Barcelona, founded in 1899 by a group of young foreigners living in Barcelona, was the result of the increasing popularity of football, and other British sports, across Europe. These origins have conferred upon the Club its intercultural identity, multi-sport focus and its deeply-rooted allegiance to Barcelona and Catalonia. The foundation of the Club coincided with a time when people were becoming interested in playing sport in Catalonia. This social context and Catalonia idiosyncratic culture led to the creation of a new model of modern leisure. Joan Gamper, the Club founder, was the inspiration and driving force behind the Club first 25 years. His commitment to FC Barcelona went far beyond his role as player, director and president

During the subsequent decade the club consolidated it within the football panorama and social milieu of the city and country. A number of different circumstances played a part in this process, including its strengthening as an organisation via the steady growth of its members; the re-writing of the Club statutes, and the acquisition of the Club's own football grounds for the first time. At the same time, a range of sporting successes and growing recognition accorded to players saw football develop into a mass phenomenon, turning it into a professional sport.

FC Barcelona was committed to social, political and cultural reform, initiated by the Republican Catalan government. The official Club newsletter in October 1932 made the Club position clear: "Our club popularity undeniably includes elements that are not related to sport." Participation in political and cultural acts formed part of this commitment. At the beginning of the Civil War, the Club's employees were faced with the threat of having FC Barcelona taken from them, prompting them to make an important committee decision that ultimately saved the organisation. The committee demonstrated its firm resolve not to break away from its pre-war leadership.

The toughest moments experienced by FC Barcelona football club were the initial post-war years. The Club would not disappear without a fight. Subject to relentless repression and purges by the army and authorities, the identity of the organisation was changed completely. The purges also affected the players; anyone who had gone on the tour to Mexico and the United States was suspended for two years. Many of the players were exiled abroad. The Club's coat of arms and name were changed because they were not deemed to be sufficiently Spanish, and the Club's presidents were scrupulously selected by the sports authorities.

During the 1960s, FC Barcelona saw a relentless increase in membership numbers. Paradoxically, this did not go hand in hand with sporting success. At the same time, Catalonia received a large number of migrants and it was in this context that the club became an important mechanism for integration in Catalan society. Irregular sporting success and economic austerity, partly due to the construction of the Camp Nou, meant that the Club was unable to sign big players; this was reflected in Barcelona's results.

The incredible victory in Basel in May 1979, when Barcelona won the European Cup Winners' Cup for the first time ever, returned FC Barcelona to the top ranking positions of the great world clubs. It was the first victory during Josep Lluis Nunez's presidency. During the 1980s, FC Barcelona experienced alternating highs and lows, influenced by match results, star players' performances and other matters, unrelated to sport. This decade saw the arrival of fantastic footballers -including Quini, Maradona, Schuster, Alexanco, Julio Alberto, Urruti, Marcos..- and a series of managers with very different outlooks on football -Helenio Herrera, Lattek, Menotti, Venable.. This was also the period in which the first multi-million contracts appeared and television rights began to influence the Club's financial affairs. The organisation grew bigger with the extension of the Camp Nou and a spectacular rise in membershipnumbers, which saw the total figure increase to over one hundred thousand.

From 1988 on, with Cruyff as manager, Barcelona came to be associated once more with excellent football and sporting success. The board of directors presided over by Nunez focused on building up a team of footballers that would spark enthusiasm and perform well. The Camp Nou began to fill up once again. FC Barcelona managed to secure four consecutive Spanish League championships, between 1990 and 1994. Winning the European Cup in 1992 was the pinnacle of this period, which was characterised by the team's one touch play and attacking style and the winning mentality of Cruyff's players. Known as the 'Dream Team' of European football, that squad went down in the Club's history.

In 2003, newly elected president Joan Laporta brought with him a young and dynamic generation of directors who totally changed the Club's image. His priority was to make it possible for the club's sporting successes to have a knock-on effect on the more social aspects of the Club. The following years were spectacular in many ways: there was sporting success, an exponential increase in membership, economic progress that situated the Club among the world's elite and an unprecedented focus on charity projects that was culminated with Barcelona collaboration agreement with Unicef in 2006, which projects Barcelona caring image around the world, thus definitively globalising the notion of being "more than a club".

Under Josep Guardiola, the team improved even further. Playing with the same style that Cruyff had introduced, Guardiola was a firm supporter of basing his team around the club's own youth system and promoted several young talents to the first team, and the result was the greatest Barcelona team ever. The greatest international recognition of this came when the FIFA Ballon d'Or nominations in 2010 shortlisted Xavi, Iniesta and Messi for the honour, all three of whom had grown up at La Masia, the residence where young sportspeople of all ages are trained and educated.

This team was the culmination of everything that FC Barcelona stands for, and produced an amazing string of major titles, including two Champions Leagues and three Spanish Leagues, plus the long-awaited Clubs World Cup, which was finally won in 2009, that extraordinary year when Barcelona won all six major trophies, something unprecedented in the history of European football. Barcelona broke all kinds of records, played memorable matches and won just about every title on offer. But the finest hour for Guardiola's side came at Wembley, when the world was enchanted by the kind of football that dreams are made of. The world's press bestowed praise on this extraordinary side that had written one of the most incredible chapters in the history of the game.