Bayern Munchen

FC Bayern Munich (lang-deFu�ball-Club Bayern M�nchen) is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional football team, which is the most successful club in German football, having won 22 German titles (List of German football champions) and 15 cups (DFB-Pokal).

The club was founded in 1900 by eleven football (Football (soccer)) players led by Franz John. Although Bayern won its first national championship (German football champions) in 1932 (German football championship 1932), the club was not selected for the Bundesliga (Fu�ball-Bundesliga) at its inception in 1963. In the middle of the 1970s, the club had its period of greatest success, when the famous team led by Franz Beckenbauer won the European Cup (UEFA Champions League) three times in a row (1974-76). In recent years they have been by far the most successful team in German football, winning six of the last ten championships. The clubs last international title was the Intercontinental Cup (Intercontinental Cup (football)) in 2001, though they won their fourth European Cup the same year.

Since the beginning of the 2005-06 season, Bayern plays its home games in the Allianz Arena. Previously the team had played for 33 years in the Olympic Stadium (Olympic Stadium (Munich)). The team colours are red and white, and the team crest shows the colours of Bavaria.

Bayern is a membership-based club with more than 152,000 members. There are also more than 2,500 officially-registered fan clubs with about 181,700 members. The club has other departments for chess, handball (team handball), basketball, gymnastics, bowling (Skittles (sport)), table tennis, referees, and senior football with more than 1,100 active members.