Real Madrid Club de Fútbol is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. It is the football club with most honours in the world, it holds several records. The club also has a similarly successful basketball section. The team original colors, white shorts and t-shirt, blue socks and cap were inspired in the London Corinthians, and the purple band in the badge represents the kingdom of Castille. The club, which went in place of the Spanish FA, was also one of the founding members of FIFA. They play their home games at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid. Real Madrid have been European Champions a record 9 times and have also won a record 29 La Liga titles. The club also operates a reserve football team, Real Madrid Castilla, and a successful basketball team, Real Madrid Baloncesto and are in talks to sponsor a rugby team, CRC Madrid Noroeste and a Formula One team. Real Madrid is unusual in that, unlike most football clubs, it has been owned and operated solely by its members (socios) since 1902. The Club was nominated by FIFA Best Club in History the 12th of January, 1998; and also nominated it as the Best Club of the XX Century the 23rd of December, 2000. During its history, the club has acquired a number of nicknames. Among the earliest were los merengues, after the white dessert meringue and los blancos. Both simply referred to the club's legendary all-white strip and are the most common to this day. In the 1970s, the nickname los vikingos became popular, possibly due to the signings of several northern European players. More recently, the media dubbed the club los galácticos, referring to club's tendency to sign the 'so-called' best players in the world. Full Article on Wikipedia