Documentary on Barcelona

[drummerboy]

Anybody see the documentary on BBC4 last night about Barca. The journalists had access to Barca President Juan Laporte for a year. They were present at board meetings, meetings with agents, discussions about players who they wanted to get rid of aka Kluvert and Rizenger. Fascinating stuff, how managed to get such access is mind boggling. Best programme about football I have ever watched.

[razor]

Its being repeated on Wednesday night at 11.15pm.
Gotta set the timer for that one.

[drummerboy]

Well worth a look

[Junior]

What language were the board meetings held in out of interest? Is the progamme a mixture of Catalan /English?

[drummerboy]

Most of the dialogue was in catalan but subtitled very well. They spoke English on occasions.

[eirebhoy]

Cheers, should be worth a watch after the Barca match on Wednesday. :)

[De Town]

Is the repeat on BBC4 aswell?

[eirebhoy]

Is the repeat on BBC4 aswell?
yep (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20050223/20050223_2315_4544_54865_85)

Wed 23 Feb, 23:15 - 00:40 85 mins

"You have to understand that Barcelona is a nation without a state, and Barça is its army." Sir Bobby Robson.

FC Barcelona is the biggest football club in the world, with 102,000 shareholder members all having seats at the Nou Camp, the biggest stadium in Europe, and the right to elect the Club President - a dream job for thousands of ambitious, patriotic Catalans.

Poor performances and a debt of 200million euros led to a crisis for the club in 2003, the worst in its 100-year history. But, with the aim of root and branch reform, a new regime was ushered in under the leadership of the charismatic Joan Laporta.

With unprecedented and exclusive access, Barça: The Inside Story spends a year at the Nou Camp documenting the new board's efforts to turn an old fashioned Catalan family affair into a global football business.

[Aldini98]

It was sheer class, they had cameras everywhere. Thinking of becoming a member myself now.

[Aldini98]

Much and all as I like Barca and dislike Real, apparently the most popular club in the world is Real with 40m fans, followed by ManU with 19m...according to some survey carried out by some German group.

Sounds like cack, anyway I heard Juve were in worldwide terms.

[anto eile]

mank utd probably have 19m fans in japan alone!

[Aberdonian Stu]

To put it simply it's too hard to work it out. If you consider the volatility of samples and the massive unreliability of the data in such studies it's impossible to accuratel determine global support. Theoretically it could be argued that Barca are the biggest locally supported club in the world yet what about football teams in China? Or Penarol in Uruguay who have 70% of the nation supporting them according to some studies Even then at local level we're talking about a lot of intangible factors making even this too hard to assess

[anto eile]

flamengo have allegedly 35million "fans" in brazil.
but as you say its hard to work out.usuually smething clubs trot out now and again to show how big they are

[noby]

Perhaps they're referring to the 102,000 members, which is more straight forward to quantify than the number of 'fans'

[Éanna]

Perhaps they're referring to the 102,000 members, which is more straight forward to quantify than the number of 'fans'
yeah thats probably what they're referring to, but its still the same story. Anyone here really believe the Pope is a die-hard Barca fan? Cos he's a member :rolleyes:

[Junior]

yeah thats probably what they're referring to, but its still the same story. Anyone here really believe the Pope is a die-hard Barca fan? Cos he's a member :rolleyes:

Well I did hear he was a 'Real' fan..........................



I'll get my coat....

[drummerboy]

Brilliant documentary on BBC4 tonight at 11.15 about Barcalona. Fly on the wall job, great viewing, if you are able after all Champions league games watch it. Will will definitely have a soft spot for Barca after it.