FC Barcelona Kit History

When talking about stripes, it’s necessary to mention their orientation and for Barcelona it has always been vertical. This was the club’s visual identity since its early years and part of the club culture. It came therefore as a shock to everyone when the sacrosanct vertical lines were replaced by horizontal hoops by the kit manufacturer Nike for the 2015-2016 season. Seen as a purely commercial move to sell more football tops, this version of the shirt was met with huge controversy and widely panned by the Barca fans. It didn’t survive. The next year, Barcelona was back to the traditional vertical stripes, making the 2015-2016 season the only time the club broke with its visual tradition. To see the club’s current kit, click here.

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The Sponsorship

Worth mentioning are the corporate sponsorship adventures of the club, as they are quite unique themselves. FC Barcelona defied shirt sponsorship far longer than its European competition. Even in 2005, when other clubs have been displaying corporate lettering on their chests for many years already, Barca only had a small logo of the local non-profit Catalan TV channel TV3 on its left sleeve (the right one is always reserved for whatever competition Barca is currently playing in). In 2006 first letters finally appeared on the Blaugrana’s fronts. They were however, the word “UNICEF” and it was actually Barca itself that paid the charity a yearly sum of money in what can be only called reverse-sponsorship. In 2011 however, the corporate money started finally rolling in. The letters “UNICEF” were relegated to the back of the jersey (Barcelona still pays UNICEF every year) to be replaced by Qatar Foundation and in 2013 Qatar Airways. In 2014 the Turkish appliance maker Beko replaced TV3 on the left sleeve and finally in 2017 the club signed a massive contract with the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, which now appears on the front of their shirts.

Barcelona had only three kit suppliers over the years. Till 1982, there was no official supplier. That year, the Barcelona sports brand Meyba has been chosen. The Meyba kits lasted till 1992 till the Italian sportswear manufacturer Kappa took over. In 1998 however, the supplier changed once again – this time to Nike.

The Away Kit

While the FC Barcelona home kit remained true to its concept throughout the years, their away kit has been a veritable fashion show. The club began playing their away games mainly in yellow which at times was embellished with red and blue stripes. The shirts of those times were almost always long sleeved and often had collars. Frequently they were either laced up at the neck or more commonly fitted with a few buttons.

In the 30s the club wore all blue shirts – a choice that lasted for most of the decade. In the 40s however, red shirts were adopted, still usually collared and buttoned at the neck. The most interesting change though happened in the 50s. Even thought they were often augmented with blue and red stripes, the away jerseys of Barca became white and stayed that way for a number of years. As the club matured, the rivalry with the capital based Real Madrid intensified and white was the colour of the Madrid team. Consequently, the white was eventually abandoned for Barca and while it returned for a few select seasons years later, it was always heavily accented with red and blue. A version of light blue jersey was introduced to the Blaugrana’s away uniforms next – a colour that would prove to be popular and would also make regular appearances every now and then throughout the later seasons.

The 70s saw Barcelona return to yellow for their away games. This design, which lasted into the late 80s had a prominent blue and red stripe running from the right shoulder to the left hip, across the chest of the jersey. This stripe later straightened and ran from the right shoulder vertically down. Yellow was a popular choice with the fans and it stayed with the team for almost two decades. It heralded the arrival of the Cruyff years and led the club right up to the era of the Dream Team.

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Beginning in the late 80s, all uniformity left Barcelona away kits. From then on, they changed colours almost religiously, alternating between blue, red and even orange. Initially, they were relatively monochrome but in the 90s – when visual design flair took over football fashion – the patterns on the jerseys started getting more and more elaborate. The most striking design came in the 2013-14 season, when the club adopted red and yellow stripes for their away colours. This choice was a tribute to the Senyera flag of Catalonia and was considered a political move by many. The jersey was accompanied by red shorts and with Barcelona quarter-finals loss to Atletico in the Champions League and subsequent loss of La Liga title aspirations to the same team was considered not very lucky. It did however, leave a lasting visual impression and is often arguably considered one of Barcelona’s best.

Over the years, the away colours of FC Barcelona have varied quite extensively. The most common hues have been blue, red, yellow, orange and even green. In contrast to home uniforms which frequently use yellow as trim, the embellishments on the away shirts are most often red and blue, subtly showcasing the colours of Blaugrana even during away fixtures.

FC Barcelona Crest History

The crest of FC Barcelona began as the city coat of arms, enclosed in a circle made of a laurel and a palm branch and topped with a bat. The coat of arms itself was composed of a crown, the Saint George Cross and the Senyera flag – all symbols of the region. This crest appeared almost immediately on the first shirts of the team and was worn till 1910.

In 1910, shortly after the club was saved from its first serious crisis, a decision was made to give the club its own special crest. A competition was held among the members and a design made by Carles Comamala was chosen. Comamala was a Barca player at the time (1903-1912) and a medical student with talent for art. Once selected, his design became the new crest of FC Barcelona and has remained so to this day, altered only slightly over the years via cosmetic adaptations.

Throughout time, the changes to the club crest have been restricted mainly to the lettering in the middle and the colour of the ball. The overall shape of its outline has been altered a little – usually to reflect the current design fashions – but stayed true to the bowl-shaped shield. The ball – initially yellow – became red in 1949 but returned to its original colour in 2002. The letters (originally FCB) were changed to CFB in 1941, after the coming to power of Franco, when the club was forced to use the Spanish version of the name. The same adaptation saw two red bars removed from the top right of the flag, to minimize the resemblance to the Catalan flag. The bars however returned in 1949 for the 50th anniversary of the club and the letters were recovered in late 1974. The background color underneath the letters also underwent a few changes, from white to yellow to black and then eventually to yellow again.

The current version of the crest is based on an adaptation made by designer Claret Serrahima in 2002. It takes away the dots between the letters, reduces some pointed edges and makes all the lines more modern for easier reproduction in all formats.

FC Barcelona Kit History – ChampionsLeagueShirts.com

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26