Brand Identification or how to become a football club fan

The greatest football clubs of the world are followed by millions of fans. When a fan chooses a football he usually chooses to be loyal to his team, whenever they are achieving good or bad results. Football clubs manage to engage a relationship with its fans, but what drives the fans to put so many emotions toward a football club? How do they identify themselves as fans of a team? To answer this question we will focus on a team that has more millions of fans in all around the world, the FC Barcelona of Spain.

The process of identification is complex. It is comparable to a religious experience leading to an entry to a community. The sacralisation process of allegiance to its favourite club is based on several factors. The presence of gods (as idols to adore), a sacred tribe (fans), a symbolic place of cult (the stadium) and the atmosphere contribute to the accomplishment of sharing between members of a fan community. 

Fan Conversion experience:

To illustrate this notion of fans tribe, the FC Barcelona is the best example to analyse. The club was founded in 1889 and is now one of the best in the world. the club has won all the major trophies, and is known for its excellent football and players that were idolized for their talent. From Johan Cruyff to Messi and Neymar today, the team always had a great player to mark a generation or an era. So all the elements are present, the presence of gods is represented by the genius Lionel Messi the best player in the world, the sacred place is the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona, the biggest football stadium in Europe. The atmosphere that contributes to this is the sport itself football, and finally the last factor the sacred tribe is represented by Barcelona Fans.

FC Barcelona has 260 millions of fans and 78 followers on the most known social network Facebook. The number of fans increases from year to year, and it is due to the club strategy of retaining and attracting more fans. Each year at summer, when all football clubs are preparing their pre-season, the club is participating to a training stage in a chosen destination. Usually the destination is a country with a new potential market of new fans, so new customers, such as Asian countries (china, Japan...). To retain their fans, the club strategy was to create group of supporters in each Spanish city, and also in other countries to gather the community and strengthen the relation between the fans and the club. Those groups of supporters are called “penyas” in Spanish, and for example even in Madrid, the rival city there is a penya of Barcelona club. The penya system was created in the 1940s and helped the team to establish itself thanks to donations from supporters. Those penyas make the supporter feel like they own the club, and in return, the club also recognizes them. Each penya has its own rules, and usually during the game day they organize events, like hosting fans to watch the game, or organizing trips for the ones who want to go to the stadium

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Finally, choosing to be a fan is not as easy as it seems, many factors are required, and great clubs now very well how to attract and retain their fans. 

Logo of Paris Penya: FC Barcelona fans from Paris, France