FC Barcelona has been distinguished with the Barcelona award at the Marketing Leaders Awards 2025, a recognition that rewards the companies or professionals who have most contributed to the projection and image of the city of Barcelona. The award recognizes the Club’s brand strategy, of which La Masia is one of the most representative pillars.

The award was received by Paloma Mikadze, Director of Barça Identity and Barça Media 360, who highlighted the role of La Masia as one of the most powerful expressions of FC Barcelona’s identity. During her speech, Mikadze explained that “understanding what La Masia is means, in reality, understanding what Barça is,” and emphasized that its essence reflects the way the Club understands sport, education and values.

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The Director of Barça Identity also highlighted that Barça’s brand strategy starts from a very clear principle: explaining to the world what Barça is by connecting with people, with fans and with different audiences around the world. “We do this through emotions, which are one of the great assets of our brand, and by projecting our culture, our values, our roots, our style and our authenticity,” she noted.

In this sense, Mikadze stressed the importance of building a narrative coherence based on the Club’s brand pillars and with a clear projection towards the future, an approach that allows the Barça brand to be easily recognizable worldwide.

CaixaForum Barcelona hosted the gala, organized by Club Marketing Barcelona, an entity that since 1976 has recognized the best business and professional initiatives in the field of strategy and marketing.

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La Masia, a pillar of the Barça brand

Beyond being a sports academy, La Masia has consolidated itself as a symbol of FC Barcelona’s identity and as one of the clearest expressions of its sporting and educational model. The project reflects a vision based on the holistic development of athletes and on values such as respect, effort, humility, discipline, teamwork and personal responsibility.

Over the years, La Masia has also been key in consolidating a distinctive style of play, based on ball control, possession football and tactical intelligence, which forms part of the Club’s footballing legacy.

In her speech, Mikadze also highlighted how this brand strategy is built on different pillars that reinforce Barça’s global narrative and the emotional connection with fans around the world. In this regard, initiatives such as Barça Femení or the mascot CAT also exemplify this willingness to project the Club’s values and identity through different brand expressions.

With this recognition, the Marketing Leaders Awards highlight FC Barcelona’s ability to build a strong global brand, deeply rooted in Barcelona and its values, and to project it to the world through projects such as La Masia.

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