Barcelona Women

Women's football in Spain, particularly Barcelona, had a certain level of popularity in the 1960s, but was amateur, unofficial and technically banned. The "embryo" of Barcelona Femení was the Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona, formed in November 1970. In at least as early as the 1960s, FC Barcelona had women's teams play in exhibition games at the Camp Nou; the club does not consider these antecedents to its current women's team as they "[were] teams that had been created only for that occasion, unlike Selecció Ciutat [de Barcelona], which was created with the idea of continuity and laying the groundwork for a future project." Upon Barcelona announcing Selecció Barcelona as its new women's team, El Noticiero Universal [es] reported that the club had almost pioneered women's football in Spain "many years earlier", having gone so far as to organise a game that could not be played for reasons beyond their control.

The team was created after footballer Immaculada Cabecerán approached the club with the proposition in November 1970; the resulting team has continuity to the present. The Selecció Barcelona played their first match on Christmas Day 1970, winning on penalties against Unió Esportiva Centelles in front of a crowd of around 60,000 people. Although the team was not officially part of the club structure, it was the first match played by a women's team formally associated with FC Barcelona (then known as CF Barcelona). The women's team then changed its name to Penya Femenina Barça (Peña Femenina Barcelonista) in early 1971, quickly becoming very popular, and played more matches at the Camp Nou with large crowds. PF Barcelona wore the club's blaugrana strip from 1971, without the crest. They were runner-up in the first cup competition in Catalonia, in 1971, before winning the Catalonia-based league in 1973.

The initial strength of women's football in Spain was flagging by 1975, and by September 1977 there was no longer a women's league in Catalonia, with the idea of one also considered somewhat unrealistic. In February 1977, P.F. Barcelona had to publish a call for players in the Revista Barcelonista, with the magazine suggesting there was a crisis in lack of players but also promoting the team as a way to "keep in shape" and look good, rather than emphasise sport. During the down period of the late 1970s, Barcelona was one of the large teams that continued playing, including against women's teams from leagues in other countries. Maria Teresa Andreu, president of P.F. Barcelona at the time, felt that FC Barcelona respected the team, with the club supporting and involving them. A Catalan women's league was established again by the 1978–79 season, with a concurrent cup competition in which P.F. Barcelona Atlético finished as runners-up after losing the final on penalties, before P.F. Barcelona was second in the league in 1979–80.

The Spanish Football Federation (then FEF, now RFEF) formally recognised women's football in 1980 and in 1981 approved for a women's football department of the Catalan Football Federation (FCF) to create the Women's Catalan Football League [ca], of which Barcelona was a founding member. In the 1982–83 season, the team took former player and advocate Núria Llansà as coach, and changed its name. Andreu suggested the team be called Club Femenino/Femení (CF) Barcelona, to be closer to the name of the men's team, with this change made official before the 1983 Copa de la Reina de Fútbol; they were still sometimes known as Penya Femenina Barcelona later in the decade, and were not an official section of FC Barcelona. How the women's team was run had caused a splinter group to leave and form the independent team Penya Barcelonista Barcilona [ca] in 1981, led by former Barcelona players Francina and Vicenta Pubill i Font [ca]. In terms of titles, Barcilona was much more successful than Barcelona in the 1980s, though the two were considered the teams to beat within Catalan women's football and "fought to the death" in the league. Other top Catalan teams at the time were women's rivals Espanyol and another independent team, Vallès Occidental. Barcelona won its first official competition – the Copa Generalitat/Copa Catalana, a predecessor to the Copa Catalunya — by defeating Barcilona and Vallès Occidental in 1985.

Support from FC Barcelona varied in the era: in January 1983, ahead of the Copa de la Reina, Barcelona did not have fixed training facilities or times (unlike the majority of teams in the league, though Barcilona also did not) and the relationship with FC Barcelona was considered among the worst of women's teams with parent clubs. Reportedly, FC Barcelona "didn't want to know" when it came to them. In 1984, the year Llansà was promoted to director of the women's football team, FC Barcelona was thanked for taking a much more sustained interest in women's football, having offered its stadiums (including the Camp Nou) and facilities. Since at least 1985, the team played most home games at the Mini Estadi. Llansà would remain director until the team was incorporated as an official section of FC Barcelona.

In 1988, Club Femení Barcelona, which was sponsored by FC Barcelona, was a founding member of the Liga Nacional, the first top-flight national women's league in Spain. Their performances in this iteration of the league were inconsistent from the start, losing to weak teams and beating otherwise unbeatable ones, cementing themselves as a mid-table team. They had a successful three-year run in the early 1990s, placing in the league top three between 1992 and 1994, and winning the 1994 Copa de la Reina. They subsequently declined to bottom table positions but, despite their weaker performances in the later years of the Liga Nacional, always managed to stay in the top division.^[]

Andreu joined the board of FC Barcelona in 2000, and within the year had brought Club Femení Barcelona into the Barcelona Foundation's organisational structure, making the women's team part of the club in administration.

In 2001, the league was rebranded into the Superliga Femenina due to natural growth; Barcelona was not accepted into the top division, as they could not pay the inscription fee of ₧3 million, and were installed in the new Superliga second division, the lowest tier of national football at the time (though sub-divided by regional group). Llansà pushed for the team to be recognised and supported as a section of the club; in the summer of 2002, the FC Barcelona board unanimously approved ratifying the decision to incorporate CF Barcelona as an official section, and the club rebranded the women's section to Futbol Club Barcelona Femení. The next year, the team nominally became professional, but did not receive livable salaries and still had to maintain other jobs.

Barcelona won its group in the Segunda División in 2002 and 2003, but remained in the second division after unsuccessful appearances in the promotion playoffs. It was eventually promoted to the Superliga Femenina in 2004. Once promoted, the team enjoyed some popularity in the 2004–05 season due to the signing of the Mexican international Maribel "Marigol" Domínguez and the Spanish María Luisa Coimbra, though this did not translate into quality results for the team.^[] Xavi Llorens was hired as manager in 2006 to replace Natalia Astrain, who was among the figures to leave when the club restructured and significantly reduced the women's section in the summer of 2006. Llorens was unable to keep the team in the Superliga, and at the end of the 2006–07 season, the team was relegated and the club considered dissolving the section.

Barcelona returned to the Superliga in 2008, and between 2009 and 2011, they consolidated themselves in top positions in the league table.^[] In 2011, they won their second Copa de la Reina, beating local rivals Espanyol 1–0 in the final. In 2012, they won their first league title with a then-record 94 points, qualifying for the UEFA Women's Champions League for the first time before exiting in the first round.^[] They successfully defended the league in 2013 with a last matchday away win over leading team Athletic Bilbao, before winning the 2013 Copa de la Reina to become the fifth Spanish women's team to achieve the domestic double.^[]

Barcelona qualified for the quarterfinals of the Women's Champions League for the first time in the 2013–14 edition, a season in which they won their third straight league title. Between 17 April 2011 and 11 December 2011, Barcelona maintained a 15-match winning streak, the longest consecutive run in Spanish women's football history by 2015; and between 23 September 2012 and 20 April 2014, they had a 54-game unbeaten run, another record at the time. By the end of the 2013–14 season, the club referred to the previous four years of Barcelona Femení as a Golden Era in which they "absolutely dominated the Spanish football scene", and the team had received their own section in the Barça Museum. In the following 2014–15 season, they became the first team in the Spanish women's league to win four straight league titles.

In the summer of 2015, the club made the decision to professionalise the women's section. Despite their domestic success, players were unable to make a living playing for Barcelona Femení, and the club knew it could not compete in the Champions League against professional teams from other countries. The team had made a sponsorship deal with Stanley Tools in 2014, which allowed them to become professional, and added a shirt deal in 2018 that made Stanley the first shirt sponsor specific to the women's team. Having not been included in the deal when Rakuten sponsored the men's team's shirts in 2016 allowed Barcelona Femení to sign an exclusivity deal with Stanley for around €3.5 million per year, separating the team's finances and making them individually profitable. With the professionalisation, the club began changes, including bringing in Markel Zubizarreta first as women's team manager in 2015.

Barcelona's domestic dominance ended as they went through the process of becoming professional, with then-captain Vicky Losada later saying that the jump "was a big change" initially, disrupting the team. As part of their new professionalism, Barcelona placed a greater priority on competing in the Champions League, though focused on improving conditions rather than immediately trying to match the level of foreign teams. They reached their first Champions League semifinal in the 2016–17 season, which was compared to the rapid rise of Manchester City W.F.C., who had become professional and then achieved this milestone at the same times as Barcelona.

This period also coincided with Atlético Madrid Femenino "emerg[ing] as a really strong side". Atlético became a challenger to Barcelona's success, and did so by playing with a style that counteracted Barcelona's: a rivalry developed between the teams that Losada described as the women's Clásico. Atlético won the three league titles between the 2016–17 and 2018–19 seasons, and Barcelona were runners-up in each of those seasons.

After struggling against Atlético for a few years, Barcelona beat them in the final of the 2017 Copa de la Reina, in Llorens' final match as coach. Llorens had come in to restructure the women's section in 2006 when it was weak, and his departure also brought about change. Under his replacement, Fran Sánchez, and with Zubizarreta becoming sporting director in summer 2017, Barcelona Femení moved away from its focus on development and integration of youth players. The process briefly changed to signing multiple big names in international football, including England star Toni Duggan and Lieke Martens, who they made the highest-paid female footballer. In the summer of 2018, Barcelona Femení joined the men's team on a pre-season tour for the first time, one of the measures that made The Guardian consider them a groundbreaker in "growing commercial opportunities" and promoting equality for women's football.

Barcelona defeated Atlético at the Wanda Metropolitano on 17 March 2019, in a match that broke the world record for attendance at a women's club football match with 60,739 attendees. Later that season, Barcelona progressed to their first ever Champions League final, meeting and losing 1–4 to five-time Champions League winners Olympique Lyonnais Féminin (Lyon). Sánchez had been replaced by Lluís Cortés in January 2019 and, starting in summer 2019, Barcelona aimed to reduce the number of signings each year, returning to the long-term project of homegrown talent as the basis of the team; Zubizarreta would gain a reputation as the "architect", building the team from youth acquisitions and convincing higher profile players, a "low-cost" method of creating a strong, cohesive team. Barcelona Femení began only incorporating external players who connected to the team's style, with Losada insisting that "the style of the club is sacred." After losing the 2019 Champions League final, the team directed investment to other areas, including improvement in conditions and an expanded support staff. The period from Barcelona's surge in success and cementing of identity in 2019, to the present as of 2024, is described as a dynastic era for the team and as the "new dynasty" of Europe. In 2024, the success of Barcelona Femení was considered by local sportswriters and the FC Barcelona club historian to be the prevailing sense of identity and club narrative for FC Barcelona.

After having been runners-up in all competitions for two years, Barcelona won four titles for the 2019–20 season, but did not reach the final of the 2019–20 Champions League, which the club considered disappointing. Since 2020, Barcelona has won the league and reached the Champions League final every season, while also winning at least one of the Copa de la Reina and Supercopa each year.

They won their first Champions League title by defeating Chelsea 4–0 in the 2021 final. A month later, Cortés left, as the club continued to strive to build on their success and standards of professionalism. Losing their manager did not harm the team: their 2021–22 season is considered one of the most dominant in football. Grant Wahl said the team was one of the best women's sides in history, and attributed their resilience and increasing success to having established a new culture within the team itself. They failed to retain the Champions League this season, but would win it again in the following two. Their 2023–24 season exceeded their previous successes, with the team completing their first continental quadruple by defeating Lyon 2–0 in the 2024 Champions League final; it was their third Champions League title in four years, and their first defeat of European rivals Lyon. Maria Tikas opined that the match confirmed Barcelona as the new holders of the European dynasty.

During this period, the team also dominated individual awards: captain Alexia Putellas swept all individual awards for two seasons (corresponding to 2020–21 and 2021–22), with Aitana Bonmatí then winning all individual titles for the 2022–23 season. Including her achievements with the Spain national team, Bonmatí had the most decorated season of any footballer, male or female. Other records set by the team include twice setting the highest-ever attendance for a women's football match – Barcelona beat Real Madrid and then Wolfsburg at the Camp Nou, with respective attendances of 91,553 and 91,648 – and breaking the world record for a transfer fee in women's football to bring Keira Walsh from Manchester City in the summer of 2022.

The team's dominance in Spain also reached new heights after they summarily defeated main rivals Atlético 7–0 in the 2021–22 Supercopa final. That season, they had mathematically won the league by March. Real Madrid incorporated its women's team in 2020, aiming to challenge Barcelona's monopoly within Spain; Barcelona has won every women's Clásico as of 2024.