Real Madrid

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, better known simply as Real Madrid, is a multi-sport organisation based in Madrid (Spain). It was officially registered as a football club by its members on 6 March 1902 for the purpose of practising and developing this sport, although its origins date back to the year 1900, and its name of (Sociedad) Madrid Foot-ball Club to October 1901, making it the fifth club founded in the capital. Julián Palacios and the brothers Juan Padrós and Carlos Padrós were the main champions of its creation. The organisation acquired its current designation on 29 June 1920 through the granting of the honorary title of “Real” (“Royal”) by His Majesty King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who also conferred the corresponding visual distinction by incorporating the royal crown into its emblem.

Identified by its white colour (from which it takes the epithets “blancos” (“the whites”) or “merengues”), it is one of the four professional football clubs in the country whose legal entity is not that of a sports public limited company (S. A. D.), since its ownership lies with its more than 90,000 members. It shares another exception with Athletic Club and Fútbol Club Barcelona in having participated without interruption in the top category of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, the Primera División of Spain, since its establishment in 1929. In it, it holds the honours of having been the first historical leader of the competition, of being the team with the most titles, and of having the highest points total in a single edition.

Committed from its beginnings to the development of football, it soon acquired a multi-sport character and developed several other disciplines that gradually disappeared over the years, with the exception of the basketball section, called Real Madrid Baloncesto. There have been several speculations in the recent history of the organisation about the possibility of reviving some of them, such as the handball section, or the rugby section, which never materialised, unlike a women's football section, an area which since the 2010s the club had been working to create with a base running from the youth system up to the top category. Finally, in 2019, and taking another of the possible routes towards its creation, the merger by absorption of Club Deportivo TACON took place, approved at an extraordinary meeting by the delegate members, thus forming the Real Madrid Club de Fútbol Femenino.

It is a creating, founding and co-founding member of several of the longest-running Spanish competitions before the relevant governing bodies existed: the Campeonato Regional Centro, or the Copa de España. At international level it was one of the founding members of FIFA, which awarded it the Order of Merit for its special importance in football and identifies it as one of the “classic clubs” of Spain, after it collaborated in the birth of some of the most prestigious competitions or associations, such as the European Cup, the Intercontinental Cup, or the European Club Association. It follows the same path in basketball, where, together with Club Joventut Badalona, it is the only club that has always played in the top league division since its creation in 1957, of which it is also a founding member, as well as of the homonymous European Cup, or the international Christmas Tournament.

As for its sporting achievements, it is one of the most decorated and renowned organisations in the world in both disciplines, and it has been honoured, in national and international football terms, by FIFA as the Best Club of the 20th century, by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) as the Best European Club of the 20th century, by the magazine Kicker as the Best Football Club of the 20th Century and the 1st Legendary Club in the World, and by the Globe Soccer organisation as the best Club of the 21st century. Between both disciplines it totals thirteen world championships and twenty-five European Cups, more than any other European club across both sports combined, placing it tenth in the multi-sport honours list if sections that the club does not have are taken into account. At national level it is the most decorated Spanish club.

Seventeen former members of the team have been inducted into the FIFA Hall of Fame, a project dedicated to preserving the memory of relevant figures in the history of football, with some highlighted as “deans” for their special significance, as well as the club itself as an entity.

A 33% of the football fans surveyed in Spain as of 2021 by the market and opinion statistics portal Statista name it as the most popular team, while at international level it is also one of the most recognised organisations in the world, with an estimated 500 million followers in 2020. The number of supporters, with close to 20 million monthly visits on Google, helps make it one of the sports societies with the highest market value and one of those that earns the most each year. Its value is estimated at around 5,100 million dollars and its revenues exceed seven hundred million euros per season, with an estimated 653 million not counting player transfers in the 2020–21 season. It has a budget of 695 million — mitigated by the COVID-19 pandemic and which would have risen to over 900 million under normal conditions — while it took on net debt for the first time in five years — of 46 million, also as a repercussion of COVID-19, and manageable in terms of solvency. Its valuation as the most valuable football club is surpassed in comparison only by the Dallas Cowboys of American football and the New York Yankees of baseball, while it is the fifteenth most valuable brand in Spain, the first in the sports sector.

It has a non-profit foundation dedicated to social work in international cooperation in favour of development around the world.