No football academy has a larger number of graduates playing at Europe’s elite clubs than La Masia, the site named after the old farmhouse next to Barcelona’s magnificent Nou Camp stadium.

The academy, which houses boarders enrolled in Barcelona’s youth system, has enjoyed a long period of extraordinary success.

Players of the calibre of Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez have graduated with honours, inculcated with specific values about how football should be played.

At Barcelona, the emphasis is on possession, short, accurate passing and a fluidity which resembles the great Ajax side of the 70s, famed for their ‘total football’.

The current squad of Barcelona players, who cruised past Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday, have become household names, yet the club deliberately avoids creating money-making assets similar to the galacticos to be found at Real Madrid.

Barcelona’s former marketing director Esteve Calzada, the man responsible for initiating the strategy, says, “In markets such as Japan and Asia, it is important that local football fans buy into the whole brand rather than individual players (because) in some football territories, fans move their affections with the player.”

As one of the world’s the biggest sporting brands, it would be commercial madness on a grand scale for Barcelona to create a competing brand, especially were it one of its own players.

Instead, the club is content to nurture athletes who play attractive football and marry this with a unique identity forged by history rather than created artificially by an oligarch’s cash.

Founded at the end of the 19th century, the club became a focal point for regional identity amid turbulent and often bloody periods of Spanish history.

FC Barcelona developed into a visible manifestation of Catalonian pride, not least when they faced bitter rivals Real Madrid.

The club’s history created this identity: during the Spanish Civil War, for example, Barcelona’s president was shot dead by Franco’s troops and its social club was bombed.

With the city under occupation and Catalan language banned, the football stadium became a rallying point for Catalans, a place where a common cultural identity could be displayed.

So Barcelona is more than a football club – in fact, it is a multi-sport club, with basketball, handball and roller hockey divisions.

It is also owned by 155,000 members who vote for a president every four years following a contest which has been likened to US presidential elections.

While across football, lip service is paid to the notion that fans are stakeholders in a club, when in reality, they’re customers whose brand loyalty is continually put to the test, at Barcelona, the ownership structure, history and election cycle ensures fans cannot be ignored.

Gradually, however, some commentators believe Barcelona’s long-standing consensus is being eroded.

As every football fan knows, Barcelona are the only high-profile football club in Europe without a paid-for shirt sponsor.

What is less well known is that its members were not asked to vote on whether they actually wanted one on the famous red-and-blue shirts.