Josep Luis Nunez

[Barcaman]

Former Barca president, Josep Lluís Núñez (87), has passed away this Monday 3rd December. The real estate builder and developer, remains the longest serving president in Barça's history.

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Born in Baracaldo (Vizcaya) on the 7th September 1931, Nunez helped Barcelona win 14 titles during his 22-year reign. He passed away this Monday after a long battle with illness.


Josep Lluís Núñez arrived at FC Barcelona in May 1978 in what were the first democratic elections for control of the club. Núñez beat Ferran Ariño and Nicolau Casaus for the role. His slogan was 'Per un Barça triomfant' ('For a triumphant Barça'). From that day until he stepped down as president 22 years later, Josep Lluís Núñez became the longest serving president in Barça's history. He won in the 1989 elections against Sixte Cambra and in 1997 against Àngel Fernández.

During this time Núñez and his Barcelona won a total of 140 trophies across all of their teams, 27 of which were for the senior football side. The standout trophy being the European Cup which they won with Johan Cruyff as head coach. His first title was the European Cup Winners' Cup victory in Basel during the 1978-79 season.

Under Cruyff, the golden period of Barcelonismo in the Núñez era was the 'Dream Team' which also won four consecutive LaLiga titles, another Cup Winners Cup and a Copa del Rey. Before that, with Terry Venables in charge, they'd won their first LaLiga title in 1984-85. Following Cruyff's spell in charge Barcelona won the Spanish Super Cup under Bobby Robson, the Copa del Rey and their fourth European Cup Winners' Cup. And finally under Van Gaal the team won two more league titles in 1997-98 and 1998-99.


His star signings were Schuster, Ronaldo, Maradona, Laudrup, Koeman, Romario, Rivaldo and Stoichkov.
Under his leadership Barcelona become the team with the most club members, rising from 78,000 to 106,000, and also increased the capacity and remodelled the Camp Nou. To his credit he also strengthened the relationship between Barça and its supporters clubs, alongside the also departed Nicolau Casaus, built the Miniestadi and the Palau Blaugrana.


In 2000, Núñez left his post as president of Barcelona despite still having the backing from the vast majority of Barcelona supporters.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Nunez is one of the greatest - may be the greatest- Barca presidents ever. Really sad he is gone.
Seem like those connecting us from those 90's days are gone, there are the ex-players but few of them are connected to the club anymore

 

[Barcaman]

Nunez is one of the greatest - may be the greatest- Barca presidents ever. Really sad he is gone.
Seem like those connecting us from those 90's days are gone, there are the ex-players but few of them are connected to the club anymore

I remember fans blaiming him for everything and then they were proven wrong as club hit the worst patch with Gaspart.

 

[RedxMAK]

Legend

 

[RedxMAK]

Can't believe Rosell and Bartomeu tried to recreate his style but they failed very very very miserably...

 

[Barcaman]

Can't believe Rosell and Bartomeu tried to recreate his style but they failed very very very miserably...

In what way did they try to "re-create it"?

 

[RedxMAK]

In what way did they try to "re-create it"?

They tried to recreate his economic strategy of the club, Nunez came into the Barcelona presidency with the goal of creating a stronger Barcelona brand with a better financial situation than when he came in.

After 22 years, it is clear that Nunez succeeded in that and left the presidency with the club being way richer than when he came in, and his transfer strategy for most of his time was sign stars like Krankl, Schuster, Maradona, Lineker, Laudrup, Stoichkov, Romario, Ronaldo and Rivaldo. And for the most part he succeeded in those transfers with more than half of the aforementioned players being legends of the club today.

What Rosell tried to do was the same, improve the financial situation of the club and create a stronger brand. Tbf he did help the financial situation but he massively screwed up with the shady details related to the Neymar transfer that made him resign in disgrace, which gave the door open to Bartomeu and the rest is history. Not to mention the failure to choose great managers after Pep Guardiola and the only good appointment done in both of their tenures was Luis Enrique.


Outside of economic details, Nunez also picked the right managers most of the time like Venables who won Barcelona their first league title in 11 years, Cruyff who revolutionised the club and reformed its identity via the Dream Team, Robson who helped steady the ship after the tumultous final 2 years under Cruyff by winning a cup treble and finally Van Gaal who also won the club it's first domestic double in 39 years.

What Rosell and Bartomeu did was somewhat working at first but at the end due to the lack of consistent strategy and their wrong choice of coach, they managed to bankrupt the club and take it to a new reputational low that hasn't been seen since the Gaspart days.

Crazy though how it feels that Gaspart and Rosell were better as vice presidents than actual presidents...