Real Madrid C.F.

simply as Real Madrid)are a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain. It is the most successful team in Spanish football and was voted by FIFA as the most successful club of the 20th century, having won a record thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Spanish Cups, a record nine European Cups and two UEFA Cups. Real was a founding member of FIFA and the now-defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs as well as its replacement, the European Club Association.

Founded in 1902, Real Madrid has since spent all of its history in the top flight of Spanish football. In the 1940s, the club, the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and the Ciudad Deportiva were rebuilt following the Spanish Civil War. The club established itself as a major force in both Spanish and European football during the 1950s. In the 1980s, the club had one of the best teams in Spain and Europe (known as La Quinta del Buitre), winning two UEFA Cups, five Spanish championships in a row, one Spanish cup and three Spanish Super Cups.

The club's traditional home colours are all white. Its crest has been changed several times in attempts to modernise or re-brand; the current crest is a modified version of the one first adopted in the 1920. Real's home is the 80,354-person-capacity Santiago Bernabéu football stadium in downtown Madrid, where it has played since 1947. Unlike most European football clubs, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club since its inception. Real is the world's richest football club (€366m) in terms of revenue.

Real Madrid started when football was introduced to Madrid by the professors and students of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, which included several Oxbridge graduates. They founded Football Club Sky in 1897, playing on Sunday mornings at Moncloa. It split into two clubs in 1900: New Foot-Ball de Madrid and Club Español de Madrid. The latter club split again in 1902, resulting in the formation of Madrid Football Club on 6 March 1902.^[3] Three years after its foundation, in 1905, Madrid FC won its first title after defeating Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish Cup final. The club became one of the founding sides of the Spanish Football Association on 4 January 1909, when club president Adolfo Meléndez signed the foundation agreement of the Spanish FA. After moving between grounds the team moved to the "Campo de O'Donnell" in 1912.^[5] In 1920, the club's name was changed to Real Madrid after King Alfonso XIII granted the title of Real (Royal) to the club.^[6]

In 1929, the first Spanish football league was founded. Real Madrid lead the first edition until the last match, a loss to Athletic Bilbao meant they finished runners-up to Barcelona.^[7] Real Madrid won its first League title in the 1931–32 season. The Whites won the League again the following year, becoming the first side to have won the championship twice