Real Madrid club History
Real Madrid's origins go back to when football was introduced to Madrid by the academics and students of the Institucion libre de ensenanza, 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 Espanol de Madrid. The latter club split again in 1902, resulting in the formation of Madrid Football Club on 6 March 1902. 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 Royal Spanish Football Federation on 4 January 1909, when club president Adolfo Melendez signed the foundation agreement of the Spanish FA. After moving between grounds the team moved to the Campo de O'Donnell in 1912.
In 1929, the first Spanish football league was founded. Real Madrid led the first league season until the last match, a loss to Athletic Bilbao, meant they finished runners-up to Barcelona. Real Madrid won its first League title in the 1931-32 season. Real won the League again the following year, becoming the first side to have won the championship twice.
Santiago Bernabeu Yeste became president of Real Madrid in 1945. Under his presidency, the club, its stadium Santiago Bernabeu and its training facilities Ciudad Deportiva were rebuilt after the Spanish Civil War damages. Beginning in 1953, he embarked upon a strategy of signing world-class players from abroad, the most prominent of them being Alfredo Di Stefano.
In 1955, acting upon the idea proposed by the French sports journalist and editor of L'Equipe Gabriel Hanot, Bernabeu, Bedrignan and Gusztav Sebes created an exhibition tournament of invited teams from around Europe that would eventually become what today is known as the UEFA Champions League. In the 1970s, Real Madrid won 5 league championships and 3 Spanish Cups. The club played its first UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final in 1971 and lost to English side Chelsea 2-1. On 2 July 1978, club president Santiago Bernabeu died while the World Cup was being played in Argentina. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) decreed three days of mourning to honour him during the tournament. The following year, the club organized the first edition of the Santiago Bernabeu Trophy in the memory of its former president.
In July 2000, Florentino Perez was elected club president. He vowed in his campaign to erase the club's debt and modernize the club's facilities. However, the primary electoral promise that propelled Perez to victory was the signing of Luis Figo. The following year, the club got its training ground rezoned and used the money to begin assembling the famous Galactico side including players such as Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul and David Beckham. It is debatable whether the gamble paid off, as despite a European Cup and an Intercontinental Cup (football) win in 2002, followed by the League in 2003, the club failed to win a major trophy for the next three seasons.
