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Whenever someone mentions the word ‘Barcelona’, many people will confess to immediately thinking of football. What is it that forms this association and why is football important to people in the city and the whole of Catalonia? An Incredible Brand In one sense, the answer is obvious. Barcelona Football Club (“Barça” to its friends) is one of the world’s truly great business enterprises and also now a global brand. The business brings with it some quite staggering metrics, including the fact that it is currently valued at a little over $3 billion. Success also breeds recognition. For a long time, Barcelona FC has been extremely successful in winning silverware, both domestically and internationally. That further publicizes the city across the world’s media and forms a yet stronger automatic association between club and city in people’s minds. The social context here is also important and that covers the domains of politics and culture. Social Ownership Barcelona FC is comparatively rare as a football club or indeed any other sort of major business, in that it is owned and run by its own fans. That is an extraordinary achievement in the days of vast corporate TV rights deals and sponsorship plus the long arm of global capitalism. Yet the club has virtually always operated that way and therefore, even when thinking of it as a business, the links between Barcelona FC and the wider city’s society are unbreakable. Catalonia has a long association with social politics and for that reason, the club and its ownership approach holds a special place in the hearts of local people, including those (and they do exist!) who are not necessarily interested in football. Political Culture This team also has a history of being an expression of Catalan culture and political autonomy, though that’s not to be confused necessarily with nationalism. Many of its players, unlike major UK clubs, are home-grown and Catalan is often the language used in club day-to-day affairs. It was a bastion of quiet assertion of Catalan ‘uniqueness’ during the Franco years, when attempts were made to crush the local culture and political will. That continues today where local people see it clearly as a Catalan rather than a Spanish club. For all these reasons, Barcelona FC’s motto is “More than a Club” and you would struggle to find anyone locally who would disagree with that assertion. The club’s roots in the local and regional community are strong and deep - and are likely to remain that way. To locals and outsiders alike, Barcelona as a city and cultural entity and the football club are virtually one and the same thing. Getting There The team’s ground is the world-famous and fantastic Camp Nou, which is oddly typically reversed in English to “Nou Camp” (pronounced roughly “Noi Kamp”). You can get there easily by taking a taxi from Barcelona Airport. You can also get there by tram, metro and bus from the city centre. Lukas Johannes is a driver for Shuttle Direct, the number one provider of shared and private airport transfers all over Europe and northern Africa. If you’re looking for an affordable taxi from Barcelona Airport, Lukas and his colleagues can make sure that you and your luggage get to and from the airport swiftly and safely.
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