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From Wednesday September 25, FC Barcelona is opening sales for packs of 3, 6, 9 or 12 tickets for Liga 2013/14 matches at the Camp Nou. With this product, members get discounts of up to 55% on the cost of buying the same tickets separately.

Savings and flexibility

The main advantage of these packages is the major saving on the cost of tickets. A 3-match ticket costs members €130, a saving of 40%, a 6-match package saves 45%, a 9-match package saves 50% and a 12-match package as much as 55%.

Note that these packages will only be available to members from Wednesday.  But from October 2, members of the general public will also be able to enjoy the same benefits.

It is not necessary to select the actual matches when making the purchase. Buyers have the freedom and flexibility to pick the league matches they will attend as the season progresses. All league matches at the Camp Nou are included, apart from the game with Real Madrid.

These packages can only be purchased via the club website at fcbarcelona.cat.

BUY YOUR PACKAGE

Following the trial version, which featured FC Barcelona and the Camp Nou, on Tuesday September 24, FIFA 14 is being launched for mobiles and tablets. EA SPORTS is offering everybody, and for free, the world’s finest football game. This new edition includes a number of new features and options, making FIFA 14 an even more attractive and user-friendly product.

With FC Barcelona as one of its stars, FIFA 14 includes 33 national leagues, more than 600 teams and more than 16,000 licensed players. And for the first time, commentaries are now available in English, French, German and Spanish.

Remember that from Tuesday 24, the game can be downloaded from the App Store, Google Play and Amazon Appstore for Android.

On Thursday September 26, from 10.00, all non-season ticket holding members will exclusively be able to acquire tickets for the league fixture between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid on the weekend of October 26 or 27. For this game a maximum of two tickets can be purchased per person, with a 5% discount on the cost of the first. These tickets can only be purchased from the club website at www.fcbarcelona.cat.

Sales will be closed as soon as the tickets sell out. If enough seats are freed be members by means of the Seient Lliure system, FC Barcelona will reopen sales a few days before the match, this time with sales open to everybody.

FCB ALBUMS, the first totally customisable FC Barcelona photo album, was the idea of Look and Remember, a platform designed for the creation of personalized digital albums and photo books. Users can create their own digital or printed books using pictures of such Barça stars as Messi, Neymar, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and many more, customising them with pictures of themselves and whatever captions they like.

Innovative idea

The project was developed in unison with FC Barcelona and using official club images, which will be constantly updated as the club signs new players. This is the first ever hybrid (physical and online) FC Barcelona license, and makes FCB the first sports club in the world to offer a product like this.

The technology implemented by Look and Remember enables several people to work together in the production of a single album thanks to the networking options offered by the website. Its intuitive and user-friendly tools mean it only takes an Internet connection and about ten minutes to put together a basic album, without the need to download any software onto your hard-drive.

The cost varies from €9.90€ for digital format to around €30 for printed format, depending on the number of pages and type of paper.

Different themes and formats

FCB ALBUMS users can pick different themes for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, festive dates, etc. And they can also create a single version by combining templates from different albums. The platform is available in Catalan, Spanish and English. Albums can be purchased from www.fcbalbums.com in book format which are then mailed to users’ homes, or presented in digital format for sharing on the web, even with other Barça fans all around the world.

FCB Albums Descarrega-te'l

Some albums that are already available include: Aquest gol va per tu!, El Barça et felicita, El nostre himne, Entrena’t amb nosaltres, Tu i els cracs del Barça, Més que un club, L’àlbum de les estrelles, Un partit amb nosaltres, Ha nascut un culer, Just Married, Som un equip, Remuntaràs! o Jo ho vaig viure!.

FCB ALBUMS is licensed to the ACV publishing group created in Barcelona in 1987. The new platform was developed by a multidisciplinary team made up of specialist programmers, designers, editors and experts in audiovisual communication. It all means that FCB ALBUMS is another step forward in the creation of traditional albums in digital format, offering users infinite scope for personalisation.

On Thursday September 26 at 10.00 am, non season ticket holding members were able to purchase tickets for the league match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, to be played on the weekend of October 26 or 27. By 12.00, the tickets were already sold out.

Non season ticket holding members could buy up to two tickets each, the first at a 5% discount. The seats went on sale via the club website at www.fcbarcelona.cat.

Sales will now be closed. Shortly before the match day, sales may reopen if enough seats are freed by season tickets holders using the Seient Lliure system. Members of the general public will also be able to purchase tickets during this possible second period.

This Wednesday at 20.45 the Camp Nou will host what’s come to be a classic showdown in the Champions League: FC Barcelona v AC Milan.

Ticket prices range from 58 euros to 164 euros, and members get a 20% discount.

TICKETS FCB-Milan

After the events at the Palau Blaugrana ticket booths this Sunday ahead of the match against Gipuzkoa, when fans picked up free tickets for children under the age of eight, the Club has decided to take the necessary measures to expedite the ticket printing process, and if necessary, increase the human resources at the ticketing booths ahead of future matches at the Palau. FC Barcelona want to apologise to Club members and fans who were affected by the events on Sunday.

Fans and members must have a ticket in order to gain access to the Palau, just like all other Club facilities. Children under the age of eight who are accompanied by an adult may enter the Palau given then he/she has a ticket. Up until the Euroleague match against Nanterre, tickets were collected at the access points of the Palau but now they are only available at the ticketing booths.

FC Barcelona and its status as one of the standard-setting clubs in world football was recently the topic of a documentary on Forbes Sport Money, a channel belonging to the Forbes group, one of the most prestigious economic publications in the world. In an interview with the editors of the magazine, the vice president of the club’s Economic and Strategic Department, Javier Faus, reveals some of the features of the economic model that explain why Barça is the leader in the international terrain, yet at the same time has remained faithful to its own identity.

The 10th most financially valuable club in the world

The vice-president comments on recent developments from a financial perspective, and on how FCB has risen from being the 10th most financially valuable club in the world to being one of the top three in the ranking, and also the club with the highest income and most supporters anywhere in the world.

Merchandising, sponsorship deals and TV rights are the factors that most explain the increase in income, but Faus explains that this strategy has been combined with sustained prices for tickets and in order to guarantee the presence of members and families in the stadium.

It is precisely this that is one of the club’s major challenges, claims the vice-president. Although FC Barcelona has grown and will continue to grow as a global brand, at the same time it is determined to hold onto its identity and stay faithful to its roots. In this regard, Javier Faus explains to an unspecialised audience in the social structure of a club like Barça that it is not a company but something that belongs to its members. Therefore, it cannot be bought, although there have been plenty of people who have tried to do just that, as he reveals.

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Javier Faus believes that this economic leadership has a lot to do with the club’s success on a sporting level. Barça have won 15 trophies in just five years, and there were eight FCB players in the Spain squad that won the World Cup in South Africa. And a face can be put to much of this success, and that face is none other than that of Leo Messi, a player “like no other we will see for at least another 30 years” and who has led the team to such unprecedented success.

The producers of the programme that is being broadcast on Forbes.com, which that gets more than 50 million single visitors a month, and also on the YesNetwork, the most watched regional sports channel in the USA, ends by commenting that the most immediate challenge for FCB in financial terms is the construction of a new and more modern stadium, which will help boost income, but where the members and families will continue to be the priority users.

FC Barcelona’s Portuguese web was launched a few weeks ago and the ad made to mark its appearance featured a number of Brazilian players at the Club.  First team squad member Adriano, basketball player Marcelinho and Wilde, Ari Santos and Gabriel from the futsal team were all involved, as you can see in this ‘making of’ video.

FCB’s Portuguese web ENJOY!

The 1,356 Club members who applied for tickets for the Champions League game between Ajax and Barça on Tuesday 26^th November at the Amsterdam Arena will all be able to see the game, as the 565 applications for tickets meant that the 1,748 tickets the Club had made available proved more than enough to match demand.

4-0 win in the reverse fixture

The two teams kicked off the Group H fixtures on September 18^th, when Barça won 4-0 at the Camp Nou, thanks to a Leo Messi hat trick and a Gerard Piqué goal.

The game will come between the league games at the Camp Nou against Granada and the visit to the new San Mames to face Bilbao and will be the Club’s first official visit to the Amsterdam Arena.

On 26th September, the Barça squad received their new exclusively designed suits from Replay, who will be providing the clothes for the players this season. The suits were handed over at a shop the Italian company have in the centre of Barcelona and there was a lot of excitement surrounding the event, with hundreds of fans waiting outside to see their idols. The players – accompanied by Tata Martino- were surprised by the fact that their suits were handed over by two supermodels.

In July Replay became the Club’s official clothes provider for the next four years. According to the creators of the suits, the design combines formal and modern elements and also echoes FC Barcelona’s attractive style of play.

Al

Other than announcing the extension of the agreement with Unicef  until 2016, the secretary and spokesman for the Board has also spoken about some of the other matters discussed at their latest meeting. One of the main topics was the extension of Andoni Zubizarreta’s contract until 2016 (to be signed next Tuesday). “We highly appreciate the work he had done” he said. “He has made some very positive renewals to the team that have maintained the excellence of the great side we have at the moment. The Board are very pleased with him.”

“There is no questioning the job he has done, you just have to look at the way the first team is performing … We appreciate the way he works and how the same idea of football has been maintained”.

Standard setting website

Toni Freixa also spoke about the feedback from the updating of the census, the ratification of the acquisition of the site at Sant Joan Despí and the adaptation of the website to people with seeing and hearing difficulties. The directors of the relevant areas will be speaking shortly and in more detail about each of these points.

On the final point, Freixa explained how it all helps make Barça “a unique club in the world”. It will involve an investment of 100,000 euros and annual maintenance costs of 25,000 euros. Barça has about 4,000 registered members and thousands more around the world who have hearing or seeing difficulties.

Full confidence in Messi

When the floor was opened for questions, Toni Freixa spoke about his optimism regarding the injury to Leo Messi. “We have every confidence in our Medical Services and therapists, and know they’ll be able to get him fit again and playing like the best player in the world that he is. He’ll be back in eight weeks”. He added that the club doctors will be overseeing the whole process.

Before ending, Freixa pointed out that the club gave away 333 free tickets to children for the game with Espanyol (who had to be members) and a further 79 for the game with AC Milan.

The FC Barcelona board decided at its meeting on Monday to extend its links with Unicef until 2016, when its mandate comes to an end, as explained at a press conference today by the spokesman and secretary, Toni Freixa. The Club has agreed, as it has done in recent years, to donate 1.5 million euros a year to joint projects with Unicef, which involve the promotion of education and sport among vulnerable children. Barça and the United Nations first joined forces in September 2006. The current deal was due to end in 2014. “We are very satisfied with this alliance”, said Freixa, who also confirmed that the Unicef name will remain on the back of the Barça shirt.

Improved life for 200,000 children

In the 2012/13 season, this work was done in China, Brazil, South Africa and Ghana, focusing on promoting sport as a catalyst for the development and protection of young people. This year more than 8,500 educators have been trained in the use of sport as a motor for social integration; leisure and education facilities have been built where children can learn safely and a variety of materials have been provided for doing sport. The work done by the Foundation in unison with Unicef has helped improve the lives of more than 200,000 children.

Sport in education

Within this alliance and with the coproduction and collaboration of Minoria Absoluta and TV3, in March a documentary was shown on TV3 called ‘L’equip ideal’ that explained what sport is doing to improve the lives of children in Ghana.

In Catalonia, a guide was published on “Children’s rights in sport” that offered advice on leisure and sporting activities for children including accounts by FC Barcelona players and other important people in Catalan society. 1,500 copies of this guide have been published and distributed to Catalan leisure and education centres (libraries, schools, leisure centres, etc).

As part of an institutional trip to New York, Sandro Rosell and Ramon Pont had a meeting with Anthony Lake, the executive director of Unicef, to discuss the work that the two entities have been doing.

FC Barcelona’s new mobile application is here: FCB Time Rush. This application is available for devices that operate on the iOS operating system, it will soon be available for Android devices.

Rediscover FC Barcelona’s history in a playful and interactive world. FCB Time Rush offers users the chance to take on different challenges, compete against rival teams and recover the trophies Barça have won throughout its history.

FCB Time Rush takes you to the year 1899 and then brings you back to present today. You will be tasked with finding trophies that have been hidden throughout the streets of Barcelona. In addition, each Barça member and fan can create his/her own character as he/she race through the levels collecting coins. Characters can also find additional prizes that give them more speed, power and stamina.

For Dídac Lee, FC Barcelona Technology director, FCB Time Rush “is a good way to review the Club’s history and relive Barça’s best moments.”

This new application is available for devices that operate on the iOS platform, it will soon be available for Android devices. FCB Time Rush is the latest addition to the Club's family of applications which include FCB Fantasy Manager 2014, FCB World, FCB Fitness, FCB Virtual Tour, FCB Street Run, FCB Capball, FCB Team Cam, FCB iCroms Evolution and FCB Connect.

FCB Time Rush

What would you like to know about Cesc Fàbregas? On Tuesday November 19 from 13.30, the player will be ready to answer questions asked by fans all around the world on the official FC Barcelona Facebook page. For half an hour everyone is invited to interact directly with Cesc in Q&A format and learn more about the midfielder’s life.

How to take part

FC Barcelona is continuing with its development of #CampNouLive, the initiative to bring the players closer to their fans around the globe, and after Gerard Piqué, Xavi Hernández, Javier Mascherano and Dani Alves, it’s now Cesc Fàbregas’ turn. And it’s very easy to join in.

All you have to do is become a fan of the FC Barcelona Facebook page, and ask your questions using the specially created posts with the hashtag #askCesc. Don’t forget to write #askCesc before the questions you want to ask the player.

The player will answer as many questions as he can in 20 minutes, starting at 13.30 on November 19.

#CampNouLive

FC Barcelona is working hard to bring the players and their fans together by means of #CampNouLive, in the knowledge that social networks are the ideal way of contacting the club’s millions of fans around the world. As an institution, Barça is setting new 2.0 award-winning standards, as well as setting some world record breaking figures.

FCB SOCIAL

The Liga will return to the Camp Nou on Saturday after the conclusion of the last international break of the calendar year. Barça will host Granada at 16.00 with the goal of maintaining the top spot in the table. Tickets for the match are available on www.fcbarcelona.com.

FC Barcelona - Granada Tickets

FC Barcelona have named Albert Montagut as the Club’s new director of communication in replacement of Xavier Martin.

The Club thanks Xavier Martin for his services. 

Cesc participated in an online Q&A with Barça fans this Wednesday afternoon. The Catalan answered questions posed on FC Barcelona’s official Facebook page. The player talked about what he likes to do with his spare time and what other sports he likes besides football, among other things. In addition, he said that he’s “mentally prepared for the match against Granada.”

High hopes for Alexis

“I like to be with my family and with my friends on my free time, especially with my daughter who always gives me special moments. I also like to go to restaurants and eat sushi,” said Fàbregas, who noted that he’s motivated “to be better each day.”

When asked about Alexis Sánchez, Cesc said that Chilean is a special player. “I think that Alexis has it all to be a great star at Barça and in the world of football. He’s a good lad and a good friend of mine,” said Cesc, who added that he’d love to retire at FC Barcelona, even though he admitted that “I’ll have to work very hard for that.”

The best moment and the best goal

The fans also asked the midfielder which was the best moment in his career and if he regards any particular goal as his favourite. “The best moment of my career was probably when we won the Club World Cup and all the trophies I’ve won with Barça,” said Cesc, who added that the two penalties he scored in the Euro Cup against Italy and Portugal were the most important ones of his career, but his favourite was “the one against Milan, at the San Siro, when I was at Arsenal.”

Cesc also said that to play for Barça “is a dream and it means everything to me, I’ve always been a big fan.”

Managers and players

“One of the things I’ve learnt from Tata Martino is honesty and hard work,” said Cesc, who when asked about the Argentinian manager and Tito Vilanova said that “both are great managers and I learnt a lot from them. I want to send a big hug to Tito.”

In terms of his favourite athletes of all time, Cesc said “Rafa Nadal, Usain Bolt and Michael Jordan,” and when asked to choose between Ronaldo, Romario and Rivaldo he said, “all three.”

‘Camp Nou Live: Blaugrana heartbeats’ is the name of FC Barcelona’s new campaign to help fans and members experience games at the Camp Nou in person.

Once again, the first team players are getting in on the action. Each week a player will call on the public to come to the Camp Nou, and this week it’s Neymar Jr who’s beckoning the fans to watch this Saturday’s home match between Barça and Granada.

The game will kick off at 4:00 PM, an ideal time to bring your whole family to the Camp Nou. It’s worth noting that children under the age of eight who are members, sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters of members can get free tickets on the Club’s website or at the ticketing booths at the Camp Nou.

FC Barcelona trail blazed to the forefront of social media as it became the first football club to hold a Q&A on Facebook. The online Q&A session with Cesc Fàbregas this week generated 230,000 likes on different social media platforms. Last season, Barça were the first club to hold a Google+ Hangout in three languages, with Gerard Piqué, and earlier this season Barça became the first club to open up an official account on LINE.

Interaction and participation

Cesc interacted with the Barça fans on Facebook for a little over half an hour, and in that time he answered 30 of 3,300 questions that were tagged with #AskCesc and #CampNouLive. One of the questions the midfielder answered was Gerard Piqué’s, who didn’t want to miss out on his team-mate’s chat.

The Facebook Q&A post received nearly 30,000 likes while the photos and videos in the post itself and on Instagram picked up nearly 200,000 likes.

World leaders

Barça, the leading club on Facebook thanks to its 47.1 million fans, are committed its digital strategy which includes the #CampNouLive programme, which has allowed fans to interact with Gerard Piqué, Dani Alves, Xavi Hernández and Javier Mascherano.

Barça have nearly 87 million fans across different social media platforms. A couple months ago, the Club was acknowledged as the leading sports team on social media at the Social Media Awards.

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