The men who could have changed Barça... but lost the elections

BarcelonaMany older Barcelona fans still wonder what Barça would have been like if Josep Lluís Núñez hadn't won the first democratic elections in 1978. Three years after Franco's death, Barça was finally able to hold its first relatively free elections. "Relatively" because they were still conducted under the previous statutes, which prohibited women from voting. That year, Núñez narrowly defeated Ferran Ariño in an election marked by the decision of the favorite, Víctor Sagi, to withdraw from the race.

The saying goes that history is written by the victors, and that's largely true. But Barça's history has also been written by those who didn't win the elections. Those who presented projects, dreamed of a different club, and went to great lengths to make Barça a pluralistic, wealthy, and free club, where members can choose—something few European clubs can claim. Candidates like these who came close to winning the closest elections in history.

The 1953 elections: Amat Casajuana

During the Franco regime, club presidents were chosen at assemblies of delegate members, where few people could vote. However, in 1953, the regime opened the door to surprisingly open elections where more than 32,000 members were able to cast their votes. These were the first elections with candidates, an election day, and a vote count, as permitted by the new sports law. At Barça, president Enric Martí Carreto had resigned in protest over the Di Stéfano affair, triggering an electoral process in which the young Francesc Miró-Sans, 37, managed to convince the members with his idea of ​​building a new stadium, unlike the veteran Amat Casajuana, 71, who advocated for the old one. In the end, more than 16,000 of the 32,000 eligible members voted at the headquarters of the Textile Industry Pension Fund on Aragó Street. Miró-Sans won by a mere 301 votes, a very close race. Women were not allowed to vote in those elections, and the vote count dragged on until five in the morning amidst debates and arguments, as it became clear that some members had voted more than once and that more than one person showed up with a stack of membership cards claiming they were all voting for the same candidate. In fact, the Franco regime only allowed all clubs, not just Barça, to hold elections from 1952 to 1955, when it decided to revert to the system of presidents elected by delegate members in assemblies where only a few people could vote. Casajuana narrowly missed being elected with a continuity project because he was on Martí Carreto's board. Born in 1882, he was a businessman who had personally known Joan Gamper, who fled to France during the Civil War and returned to Barcelona with the Francoist army. He opened the first Ford dealership in Catalonia, was very involved in the automotive industry, and had a certain Catalan nationalist leaning. Had he won, Camp Nou would not have been built, because Casajoana advocated remodeling the old Les Corts stadium. One of those decisions that changes the future of a club.

The 1978 elections: Víctor Sagi and Ferran Ariño

The 1978 elections were the first democratic ones. They were one of the key moments in the club's history, with Víctor Sagi initially the clear favorite. Son of the player Emili Sagi, known worldwide as Sagi-Barba, and the son of the Barcelona baritone Emili Sagi i Barba, was a member of a family where art, sport, and business intertwined. Sagi had practiced many sports, from swimming to motorsports, and by the 1940s he was already managing advertising for the Les Corts stadium. He eventually created the Sagi Group, which would control several companies in the sector, many of which went bankrupt in the 1980s, when his name was implicated in the Banca Catalana scandal, in which he was not found guilty due to lack of evidence.

Sagi, one of the masterminds behind the opening ceremony of the 1982 World Cup, seemed destined to win the 1978 elections after receiving the most signatures of support, ahead of Josep Lluís Núñez, Ferran Ariño, and Nicolau Casaus. But surprisingly, he announced his withdrawal from the race, claiming that the excessive number of candidates was detrimental to the club. The city was abuzz with rumors about whether he had been blackmailed into dropping out. All sorts of things were said in those days. There was talk of foul play, politics, and personal dirty laundry to try and understand why Sagi was withdrawing. Armand Balsebre, professor of audiovisual communication and advertising at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), states in his biography... Victor Sagi. History of Advertising who actually decided to step aside when he saw there was no unity around him.

Be that as it may, the candidate who challenged Josep Lluís Núñez was Ferran Ariño, a man who had been on Montalt's board, in charge of youth football, where he had done a great job although he had clashed with the club's Dutch figures like Cruyff and Michels. Ariño obtained 9,357 votes, about a thousand fewer than the winner, Núñez. Nicolau Casaus, with six thousand votes, divided the voters and benefited Núñez, who brought him onto his board. Ariño denounced the dirty tricks campaign he faced in those elections, where he was accused of being a "communist," which he denied. And he wasn't, in fact, since he was a Catholic Catalan nationalist who maintained a good relationship with Jordi Pujol. He was a board member of Caixa de Barcelona and of the newspaper TodayOne of the driving forces behind the Gran Enciclopedia Catalana and a member of the board of the Association of Publishers in the Catalan Language. A businessman in the pharmaceutical sector who participated in the founding of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya in 1976, a party that would never have a good relationship with Núñez, who in 1978 moved in circles close to Alianza Popular, the future PP. If Ariño had won, what we know for sure is that Barça in the 1980s would have been more Catalan nationalist than under Núñez.

The 1989 elections: Sixte Cambra

Eleven years after his election, and after a decade without elections due to a lack of rivals, Núñez had to face businessman Sixte Cambra in a highly politicized election. Jordi Pujol's Catalonia did not look favorably upon the idea of ​​the Barça president being someone who wasn't one of their own, like Núñez, so they created a strong candidacy around Cambra that brought together other pre-candidates, such as former player Josep Maria Fusté, who had been a councilor in his hometown of Linyola, precisely for CiU.

Fusté, reluctantly, ended up joining Cámara's list, despite Cámara being a seemingly ideal candidate. In fact, one of Jordi Pujol's trusted men, Lluís Prenafeta, would later admit that he had been tasked with finding the perfect anti-Núñez and that, after seeing how the seemingly strong candidates weren't actually party members, he had met Cambra, a young, articulate businessman who ran the Godó tennis tournament. Cambra had studied business administration at Esade and moved from the textile sector to business consulting, eventually becoming president of the Port of Barcelona. Always close to CiU, he received considerable support to challenge Núñez, although polls consistently placed him far behind the president. On election day, everyone was surprised to see Cámara put up a strong fight with 17,609 votes, 40.33%, compared to Núñez's 25,441 votes. In 1997 the builder easily defeated Ángel Fernández in the last elections where he had a rival.

The elections of 2000 and 2003: Lluís Bassat

The last candidate who challenged the current leadership and was able to change the club was another of the big names in Catalan advertising, like Sagi: Lluís Bassat. In this case, he ran twice, in 2000 against Joan Gaspart and in 2003 in the elections won by Joan Laporta. Bassat had created a small advertising agency in the 1970s that became very well known for campaigns such as the Gallina Blanca one, with the advertisement in which he was called "Avecrem, chup, chup"Well-connected with the Generalitat, he excelled in television advertising, expanded his businesses internationally, and was one of the organizers of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Olympic Games.

The 2000 elections were the public's biggest disappointment." Still reeling from Figo's recent departure to Real Madrid, Bassat managed to unite a significant portion of the opposition around him, including the Elefant Blau group and a young Joan Laporta. He proposed a renewal and modernization of the club, but in the elections, he garnered 19,791 votes (43.13%), losing to Gaspart, who secured 25,181 votes. However, Gaspart's tenure proved disastrous. A new election was held in 2003. By then, everyone was certain Bassat would be the favorite, and he had brought Pep Guardiola on board as sporting director. But in the election with the most candidates ever (a total of six), he finished behind Laporta. The publicist received 31.80% of the vote, while the lawyer secured 52.57%. Throughout the campaign, Bassat never felt comfortable in heated debates.

Bassat watched the train pass him by, just as it has happened to other candidates who never came close to being chosen, like Agustí Benedito in 2010. In the last elections, Víctor Font was defeated by Joan Laporta, in a duel that is being repeated this Sunday. History doesn't stop.