Athletic Club

Athletic Club were founded in Bilbao in 1898 by Basque students returning from Britain and British workers in the shipyards and mines, formally constituted in 1901 and merged with Bilbao FC in 1903. The club has fielded only players born or developed in the Basque Country for over a century, a policy unique in major European football, and is one of only three clubs never relegated from La Liga. It has won eight Spanish championships and the Copa del Rey more than twenty times.