Josep Sunyol


Josep Sunyol i Garriga was a Catalan lawyer, journalist and politician from Spain. He was president of FC Barcelona, a prominent politician for the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), and ERC deputy in the Congress of Deputies in 1931, 1933 and 1936.

Life

Sunyol came from both a wealthy family and a long line of Catalan political militants. He was a member of Acció Catalana, a left-wing group and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya.
In 1928 he became a director of FC Barcelona and in 1930 he founded the left-wing newspaper La Rambla, which opposed the Primo de Rivera regime. In 1931 he was elected to the Cortes as an ERC deputy. He was subsequently re-elected in 1933 and 1936.
He served as president of both the Reial Automòbil Club de Catalunya and the Federació Catalana de Futbol. In 1935 he was elected president of FC Barcelona.

Assassination

On 6 August 1936, during the early days of the Spanish Civil War, Sunyol was arrested by Francoist troops in the Sierra de Guadarrama and was then murdered by one of Franco's soldiers. His body was only exhumed in the 1990s, following a campaign by Els Amics de Josep Sunyol for FC Barcelona to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his death in 1996. A memorial stone to Sunyol was placed in a park nearby the location he was killed, and Sunyol is now described as 'the Martyr President' by FC Barcelona.