I know that there is club in ecuador that is named Barcelona just wondering are they in anyway linked to FC. Barcelona (spain)? I also heard that there was an Arsenal team in Argentina are they in anyway connected to Arsenal (england)? Also, can these clubs use these names? aren't these names copyrighted?
I don't think they are connected.There also is Newell's Boys in la Primera, which stands out a little more than Arsenal. I'm not sure about the copyrights, but I doubt that the English Arsenal and the Catalan Barca care if two non European teams borrow their names. When SS Lazio was founded, they wanted to be called Roma. But since there was already an AS Roma, they had to resort to naming their club after Lazio the region.
http://members.tripod.com/idolo/historia.htm it says that barcelona de guayaquil was founded by spaniards from catalunya. so they were probably named it after their favorite club. i'd suspect a similar situation for arsenal in argentina. the brit influence is heavy down there as you've probably noticed with other primera teams.
Team Names Info I found this site very informative http://www.footballculture.net/teams/names.html Also, it would be great to have more BS members' respond to this: http://www.footballculture.net/youron/find_story.asp I'm number 8
The law doesn't work quite the same way as in the US. The copyright is only infringed if another organisation is trying to pass itself or its products off as being the same as the copyrighted product. There was a case a few years ago when the Pittsburgh Steelers threatened to sue the British ice hockey team Sheffield Steelers for breach of copyright unless they changed their name. As they are still called the Steelers, it's fair to assume the courts here were able to establish that neither the team nor their merchandising was in any way pretending to be connected with the NFL team.