Futbol Club Barcelona Femení, commonly referred to as Barça Femení () or simply Barça, is a Spanish professional women's football team based in Barcelona, Catalonia. It is the women's football section of FC Barcelona and competes in the Liga F, the top tier of Spanish women's football, playing home games at the Johan Cruyff Stadium in Sant Joan Despí, and occasionally at the Camp Nou.
The club was formed in 1970 with some financial and logistical support from FC Barcelona, but without being an official section. In its inaugural season it competed in matches against other Catalan teams; it was originally known as Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona before taking the name Peña Femenina Barcelonista in 1971. Shortly after women's football was officially recognised in Spain, the team became known as Club Femení Barcelona in 1983 until 2002, when it officially became a section of FC Barcelona and took the official name Futbol Club Barcelona.
Domestically, Barcelona Femení is the most successful Spanish women's team, with eleven league titles, twelve Copas de la Reina, and six Supercopas, as well as eleven Copas Catalunyas. It also won the previous second tier of Spanish women's football a record four times after battling relegation and fighting for promotion throughout the 2000s.
Since the club's professionalisation in 2015, Barcelona has cemented itself as Spain's dominant women's football team, becoming the league's most successful team in the UEFA Women's Champions League, and one of the most successful women's football teams in Europe. It won the Champions League in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2026; with its first Champions League title, Barcelona became the first (and only) Spanish women's team to complete a continental treble, and with its third Champions League win, they became the first (and only) Spanish women's team to complete a continental quadruple.
History 1970s: Beginnings
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 as 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, 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. It promoted the team as a way to "keep in shape" and look good, rather than emphasising 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.
1981–1988: Lliga catalana and rivalry with Barcilona
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 , 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 in 1981, led by former Barcelona players Francina and . 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 derbi femení 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.
1988–2001: Liga Nacional and inconsistency 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.
2002–2007: Becoming an official section and Segunda División 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 ₧3million, 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.
2008–2015: Return to the top flight and first Golden Era
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.
2015–2018: Professionalism and rivalry with Atlético Madrid