Rosario Central

Club Atlético Rosario Central, known simply as Rosario Central, Rosario or Central, is an Argentine sports organisation from the city of Rosario, in the province of Santa Fe, whose main activity is men's football, in which it takes part in the Argentine Primera División. It owns the Gigante de Arroyito stadium.

Other disciplines are also practised at the institution, such as women's football (in which it also plays in the respective Primera División competition), field hockey, basketball, roller skating, boxing, taekwondo, futsal, beach football and volleyball, among others.

In 1905 —with the founding of the Liga Rosarina de Fútbol— the club was finally able to develop its main activity. It broke away from it on two occasions: the first in 1913, when it took part in the dissident Federación Rosarina de Football, and the second between 1920 and 1921, when it was part of the also dissident Asociación Amateurs Rosarina de Football. Between 1931 and 1938 it was a member of the Asociación Rosarina de Fútbol, where it played its first professional championships. Across these three periods, from 1905 to 1938, Rosario Central totalled fifteen local championships, three official Rosario cups and five official national Cups of the AFA.

Although throughout the whole Rosario amateur and professional era (1905–1938) the club actively took part in the official national Cups organised by the associations that preceded the AFA, it was only from 1939 that it definitively joined the regular professional League Championship of the Primera División organised by the governing body of Argentine football, in which it was crowned champion on four occasions. It is also the first team from the interior to be champion and runner-up in national league tournaments, and the first from the interior of the country to win a Copa Argentina.

At international level it won the Copa Conmebol once (an official tournament that preceded the current Copa Sudamericana) and reached the final of the same cup on another occasion. This achievement makes it the only team in the province of Santa Fe to have won an official international title organised by the South American Football Confederation. With 23 official participations in international tournaments organised by Conmebol, Rosario Central is the eighth Argentine club with the most official international participations, being the best club from the interior of the country placed in that category. In addition, to this day, it has 12 participations in the Copa Libertadores de América, in which it was twice a semi-finalist.

It has ten national titles —5 in the professional era and 5 in the amateur era— and one official international title to its name. This places it as the team from the interior of the country with the most official honours won, ranking tenth in the overall sum of official titles in the history of Argentine football. Furthermore, Central is the only team from the interior of the country that holds Primera División titles of the AFA national League, AFA national Cup titles, and international Cup titles of the South American Football Confederation. No other club outside Greater Buenos Aires and La Plata holds official honours in all of these categories.

Its classic rival is Club Atlético Newell's Old Boys, identified with the Parque Independencia of the city of Rosario, with whom it plays the Clásico rosarino.

Rosario Central is one of the clubs that claim to be one of the big ones of Argentine football. Since 2012 it has been part, together with 10 other teams, of the gallery of "FIFA classic clubs" for Argentine football, as one of the most traditional and representative teams in the country.

Part of its facilities are located in the city of Rosario, in the Arroyito neighbourhood, although it also owns other grounds in different areas of the city and two sports complexes located in two localities neighbouring Rosario: one in the city of Granadero Baigorria and the other in the city of Arroyo Seco. In addition, the club has a large number of branches in different places in Argentina and around the world.