Valencia CF

Valencia Club de Fútbol, S. A. D., is a sports organisation based in the city of Valencia, capital of the Valencian Community (Spain). It was founded on 18 March 1919 under the name Valencia Foot-ball Club, and the articles of incorporation, drawn up on 1 March of that same year in the now-vanished Bar Torino, are still preserved today. Its first team competes in the Primera División de España, known for sponsorship reasons as LaLiga EA Sports, and in the all-time table of Spanish football it ranks 5th, having been third until 2016 and fourth until 2025. It has also played 91 of the 95 editions of the top flight of football in Spain.

The Estadio de Mestalla, also a centenarian, was opened on 20 May 1923; the club plays its home matches there, with a capacity of 49,430 spectators. In 2027 it is planned that they will play their matches at the Nou Mestalla, with a capacity of 70,044 spectators.

It is the fifth Spanish club in terms of international titles (7), the fourth to have played in European competitions (41) and the fifth Spanish club with the most titles, with a total of 25 official trophies, also having won a "double" in 2003-04. Its honours include 6 Primera División titles and 6 runners-up finishes, 2 Segunda División titles, 8 Copas del Rey, 1 Supercopa de España, 1 Copa Eva Duarte, 1 UEFA Cup, 2 Fairs Cups, 2 UEFA Super Cups, 1 European Cup Winners' Cup and 1 Intertoto Cup. The club was champion of the Small Club World Cup in 1966, and runner-up in 1955, despite not being recognised as a world title by FIFA, and fourth in the 1953 Latin Cup in its only participation. It has played thirteen editions of the UEFA Champions League, being twice runner-up, in 2000 and 2001, and quarter-finalist on two occasions. It is one of the fifteen clubs that have managed to play all three finals (UEFA Champions League, European Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup-UEFA Europa League) at some point, until the Cup Winners' Cup was discontinued in 1999. On 11 January 2005 the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) recognised it as the best club in the world in the world club ranking of the year 2004, as well as placing it 20th in the best club of the 21st century (2001-2020).

Five former members of the club have been included in the FIFA International Football Hall of Fame, a project dedicated to preserving the memory of significant figures in the history of football. Among them are Alfredo Di Stéfano, Mario Kempes, Romário, Jorge Valdano and Didier Deschamps. Valencia C. F. also has four personalities in the FIFA 100, which was announced in 2004 as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the creation of FIFA. The "Che" club is the team with the most winners of the Zarra Trophy (5), the fourth in the Zamora Trophy (9), the fifth in the Pichichi Trophy (6), and the third in the Don Balón Award (10) at national level; at international level it is the third Spanish team with the most nominees for the FIFA World Player (9) and the fourth in the Ballon d'Or (23), with ten nominations for the Golden Boy Award, one for the 2019 Kopa Trophy with Lee Kang-in and one for the 2024 Yashin Trophy with Giorgi Mamardashvili. At the UEFA Awards, the coaches Héctor Cúper in 1999-00 and Rafa Benítez in 2003-04, the defender Roberto Ayala in 2000-01, and the midfielder Gaizka Mendieta in 1999-00 and 2000-01 were honoured. It has also been included three times in the UEFA Team of the Year, with Santiago Cañizares and Kily González in 2001, and David Villa in 2010, the latter also repeating in the FIFPro World XI of the same year.

Four Valencia players were part of the squad of the Spain national team that won the 2010 World Cup: David Villa, who won the Silver Boot as second-highest scorer, tied on five goals with Thomas Müller, and the Bronze Ball as third-best player of the final phase of the tournament, Carlos Marchena, David Silva and Juan Mata. Seven of its members have won Olympic medals throughout its history: David Albelda and Miguel Ángel Angulo, silver at Sydney 2000; Fabián Ayala, gold at Athens 2004; Éver Banega, gold at Beijing 2008; Carlos Soler, silver at Tokyo 2020; Cristhian Mosquera and Diego López, gold at Paris 2024. It is also the fifth team that has contributed the most internationals to the Spanish national football team: 77.

Valencia was an affiliated member of the G-14 in 2002, a group of leading European football clubs, and an ordinary member of its successor in 2016, the European Club Association, being the third Spanish club after Real Madrid and F. C. Barcelona to join. The value of the squad ranks 72nd among the most valuable football clubs in the world in January 2026, valued at approximately 160 million euros; it is the 7th Spanish club on the list, with losses of more than 200 million euros in recent years. A study carried out by the London consultancy Brand Finance in 2011 showed Valencia as the fourth most valuable club in Spain and the twenty-first greatest brand value in the world, remaining in the top 50 of this ranking of the most valuable clubs between 2011 and 2024, except for 2018. The entity has 44,962 shareholders, 39,251 season-ticket holders and more than 500 supporters' clubs (peñas) spread across Spain and countries such as Germany, France, Portugal, England, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Panama, Russia, Sweden, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the Dominican Republic.

According to a survey carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) in June 2014, Valencia CF has one of the largest fan bases in Spain. It ranks 4th in percentage of supporters (3.5%), behind only Real Madrid (37.9%), Barcelona (25.4%) and Atlético de Madrid (6.1%). It currently has more than 10 million followers on social media in 2024.

The majority shareholder of the sociedad anónima deportiva (S. A. D.) is the Singaporean businessman Peter Lim through his company Meriton Holdings Ltd., since the purchase on 24 October 2014 of the 70.4% of the shares held by the Fundación Valencia CF, which became 82% after the capital increase in January 2016. In the 2014 season, before the arrival of the majority shareholder, Valencia ranked 8th in the UEFA coefficient ranking; ten years later, for the first time in the 21st century, it fell outside the top 100 in 2024.