FC Barcelona has been around for over a 100 years and it would be naive to think that they don’t have a few skeletons in their closet they’d like the world to forget. They may have enough trophies to fill an entire apartment, but hidden away in that same place are dirty little secrets the Catalans don’t want anyone talking about.
Luckily for them, their team has been so good for so many years, that even though most of their embarrassing secrets are public knowledge, supporters are quick to forget.
At present, the club has to only wave the magical wand they love to call 'MSN' to make the general football-loving masses forget some of the questionable things they've done in the past. While some of them are just embarrassing albeit funny little titbits, others constitute far more serious encroachments of the law.
So, without whitewashing the truth, here are 6 things FC Barcelona doesn’t want you to know about them:
#6 A pig’s head that would make Mario Puzo proud
The rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid is such that the two clubs hardly ever do any transfer business with each other. The two Spanish giants broke that unspoken rule once when it came to signing Luis Figo. The former Portuguese captain is usually remembered as one of the Galacticos but some forget that he was a Barcelona player before that.
His Catalan fans definitely didn’t forget his great betrayal. During an El Clasico, Barcelona supporters went all ‘Godfather’ on him and threw a severed pig’s head and a bottle of whisky as he was about to take a corner. It’s safe to say the club would not want people to remember how unforgiving they can be.
#5 ‘Cules’
Barcelona’s fans are famously known as ‘Cules’ and if you are unaware of what the word means, then you have no idea how embarrassing that must be for the Catalonians. The word ‘cul’ is Catalonian which basically means ‘ass’ in English meaning not a donkey or mule but a person’s rear end.
The story goes back in the day when Barcelona occupied Camp de la Industria. Passers-by could only see the backsides of supporters on the highest seats during a game, thus earning them the name ‘cules’.
While the name has stuck, the club does a really good job of never bringing up what the word means. After all, who wants their supporters to be known as ‘butts’?
#4 Barcelona sold-out too
Prior to the 2011-12 season, Barcelona took great pride in having no corporate sponsors, unlike every other club. And it surely must have been gratifying to their millions of fans to know their team weren't sell-outs. However, the first time they made a move to change that policy was in 2006 when they signed with corporate sponsors UNICEF but instead of the organisation giving them any compensation, the club had agreed to donate €1.5 million a year to them.
However, after 111 years, the Blaugranas finally caved in at the start of the 2011-12 season when they signed a five-year corporate sponsorship deal with Qatar Foundation for €150 million. And now their sponsor from next season is going to be Japanese e-commerce giants, Rakuten.
#3 Camp Nou’s name to be changed
Barcelona is planning to overhaul Camp Nou to increase the stadium capacity and give its facade a new look. However, the entire project is expected to cost a massive €600 million and the only way the club believes they can raise the funds is by selling partial naming rights to the stadium to a large corporate body. Barcelona’s home, Camp Nou, has been known as such since 1956 and the club isn’t too keen on the news of this change getting out.
Clubs like Manchester City, Arsenal and Bayern Munich have already done it and now it seems to be Barcelona’s turn. Fans will be hoping the change in name will be a subtle one but it could also be something like ‘Camp Rakuten’.
#2 Dubious transfer business
Barcelona was slapped with a transfer ban in 2015 for violating international transfer rules for under-age players. Not only that, it is widely believed they concealed the real transfer amount when they signed Neymar as well.
While the rumours have been rife since the move in 2013, a national court in Spain opened a case regarding the matter only in September this year after many accusations of corruption, tax evasion and other unseemly activities.
As of this week, both Barcelona and Neymar have been slapped with fines worth millions over his transfer from Santos and the Brazilian forward could face up to two years in prison.
#1 Trophy count
Barcelona’s trophy haul in recent years is far superior to their biggest rivals Real Madrid and maybe that is why they only talk about the recent past. Because in reality, the Los Blancos have a lot more gold than the Catalans. While it is common knowledge that Madrid have more Champions League titles, they also have more La Liga titles too, 32 in fact as opposed to Barcelona’s 24.
The only competition where they have the Blancos beat is the Copa del Rey but then not many really care about that one.
