FC Barcelona and the FC Barcelona Foundation have launched a new initiative to promote the use of Catalan within the Blaugrana community and to reaffirm the language’s role as one of the defining elements of both the Club and Catalan society. The initiative, under the slogan “Parla blaugrana, parla català (“Speak blaugrana, speak catalan”) comprises a range of actions aimed at spreading, safeguarding, and promoting the use of the Catalan language.
The campaign is launched through the participation of players from FC Barcelona’s men’s and women’s first football teams. The initiative takes shape through a series of videos featuring Marc Bernal, Pau Cubarsí, Fermín López, Kika Nazareth, Clara Serrajordi, and Marta Torrejón. Through spontaneous conversations and everyday situations, the players explain how they use Catalan in their daily lives, both inside and outside the dressing room, and reflect on its contribution to social cohesion and the integration of people arriving in Catalonia.
The videos show how Catalan remains a living language within FC Barcelona’s teams, especially among players who came through La Masia, while also highlighting how an increasing number of footballers from other regions and countries are making an effort to understand and gradually incorporate the language into their daily lives.
One of the featured voices is Fermín López, who recalls his formative years at the Club: “Since I was 13, I was at La Masia and learning Catalan at school. It’s a language I enjoy speaking, I try to speak it well, and I believe I’ve learned a lot.” The midfielder also emphasizes the language’s integrative value: “It’s very important for adapting to Catalan culture, and I think everyone who comes here should make the effort to try to speak and learn it.”
Similarly, Kika Nazareth explains that Catalan has helped her adapt to both the Club and the city: “I think this has helped me a lot with integration,” says the Portuguese footballer, who is currently learning the language.
The initiative also highlights the role of Catalan-speaking players as active agents in preserving and passing on the language. Pau Cubarsí, one of the campaign’s protagonists, explains that there are increasingly more opportunities to speak Catalan in the dressing room and praises his teammates’ efforts to learn it. Some of them even describe him as one of the dressing room’s Catalan “teachers,” naturally helping and correcting those taking their first steps in the language.
For her part, Marta Torrejón underscores the linguistic richness of Barça’s dressing room, where different languages and cultures coexist: “I speak Catalan with many teammates, Spanish with others, English with others, and that’s the beauty of this dressing room and its linguistic diversity.” The defender also highlights the efforts made by many international players to understand and learn Catalan: “We can see progress in our teammates. They may find it difficult to start speaking it, but they understand it more and more every day.”
The initiative also includes a playful element through a challenge in which participants must guess uncommon Catalan words and expressions. One of the most talked-about words is“galifardeu,” which, according to the participants, has even started circulating spontaneously in the dressing room. “Sometimes Szczesny comes out with Catalan vocabulary and we have no idea where he learned it,” says Marc Bernal with a laugh, illustrating the growing interest in the language among team members.
Through this initiative, FC Barcelona and the FC Barcelona Foundation reaffirm their historic commitment to promoting the Catalan language and to the values of inclusion, respect, and social cohesion. The initiative invites the entire Blaugrana family to make Catalan a shared language and a meeting point for people from diverse backgrounds united under the same crest.