Why do Barcelona have a St. George's cross on their badge?

Barcelona badge
(Image credit: Getty)

Barcelona have a history entwined with English football. 

Their fans fondly remember Sir Bobby Robson's stint as manager in 1996/97 when the former England boss took the club to three trophies and Gary Lineker is a cult hero for netting a hat-trick in an El Clasico. 

The link to England goes even deeper, too, with the club's first manager – Jack Greenwell – coming from Blighty. The visionary Vic Buckingham may have only come to Barcelona in the late 60s but he had already laid the foundations for the club with pass-and-move football at Ajax, only for Johan Cruyff to bring it to Catalonia in the late 1980s – and Buckingham was English, too. 

But actually, the St. George's cross has nothing to do with England. Sorry.

The upper-right panel of the badge features the Catalan flag of red and yellow, known of the senyera, while the bottom panel of the badge features the blaugrana colours of blue and dark red: the two shades that have always been used on the Barca home shirt. So far, so Catalan.

And the cross? Saint George is the patron saint of Catalonia. So that explains it. 

FC Barcelona was actually founded by a Swiss man, Joan Gamper, and with such close connections between the football club and the political identity of the city, this club is firmly Catalan.

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Mark White
Content Editor

Mark White is the Digital Content Editor at FourFourTwo. During his time on the brand, Mark has written three cover features on Mikel Arteta, Martin Odegaard and the Invincibles, and has written pieces on subjects ranging from Sir Bobby Robson’s time at Barcelona to the career of Robinho. An encyclopedia of football trivia and collector of shirts, he first joined the team back in 2020 as a staff writer.