Racing Club

Racing Club, known as Racing Club de Avellaneda or simply Racing, is an Argentine sports institution founded on 25 March 1903 and based in the city of Avellaneda, Buenos Aires Province. Although its main sporting activity is professional men's football, in which it competes in the Primera División, it also fields professional teams in other sports such as women's football, basketball, futsal and hockey, while tennis, boxing, volleyball, handball, judo, figure skating, aikido, artistic gymnastics, taekwondo, muay thai, sipalki-do, beach football, athletics, swimming and diving are amateur sports.

Its stadium, called Presidente Perón, is the second largest in the country, with a capacity of more than 60,000 spectators (licensed for 53,000), and is located on Orestes Osmar Corbatta and Mozart streets, in the city of Avellaneda in southern Greater Buenos Aires.

The colours that identify the institution are sky blue and white, in honour of the national colours of the Argentine Republic.

In the amateur era it won nine local championships, seven of them consecutively, making it the first heptachampion team in the world, the only Argentine team in history to this day and the only one on the entire continent (in 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919); in addition to two more tournaments in 1921 and 1925. Of these nine championships in total, five were won undefeated. In that era it also amassed nine national cups (5 Copa Dr. Carlos Ibarguren and 4 Copa de Honor), being the record winner of both competitions; and three international cups (2 Copa Aldao and 1 Copa de Honor Cusenier). As a result of all these achievements it received the popular nickname "La Academia de Football Nacional" ("The Academy of National Football"), which identifies it to this day.

In the professional era, which began in 1931, it won nine more Argentine championships: 1949, 1950, 1951, 1958, 1961, 1966, 2001, 2014 and 2019; four more national cups (Copa Beccar Varela, Copa de Competencia, Copa Británica and the Trofeo de Campeones) and three more international cups (Copa Libertadores de América, Copa Intercontinental and Supercopa Sudamericana). In this era it was also the first Argentine team to win three consecutive local titles, the first Argentine world champion, the first champion of champions of the Americas and the first Superliga champion of champions.

Statistically it is the fourth Argentine team with the most titles in history (37), the team with the most national cups (13), the third team with the most championships in Argentine football (18) and the fourth team with the most international cups (6).

One of its greatest sporting achievements came on 4 November 1967, when it was crowned Intercontinental Cup champion by defeating the representative of the European Champion Clubs' Cup, Celtic Football Club of Scotland, 1-0 at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo in a third, deciding match, thereby becoming the first Argentine club to be proclaimed world champion. Thanks to this important conquest it belongs to the select group of only 29 teams in the world that have won the highest club football championship at world level, among more than 300,000 clubs recognised by FIFA.

It is considered one of the five big clubs of Argentine football, from the time the AFA introduced the so-called "proportional vote" in 1937, which consisted of giving greater decision-making power to those clubs with the largest number of members, seniority, following and titles.

Its classic rival is Club Atlético Independiente, with whom it plays the Clásico de Avellaneda. The remaining teams considered big (Boca Juniors, River Plate and San Lorenzo de Almagro) are also historic rivals of the club, and the matches it plays against them are likewise considered classics.

The club has two headquarters: the main one in Avellaneda and an annex in the Villa del Parque neighbourhood, in the City of Buenos Aires. It also has a total of 168 branches, 42 of which are abroad. Racing Fan Day is celebrated on 7 March.