Josep Sunyol |
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Josep Sunyol i Garriga (21 July 1898,Barcelona – 6 August 1936,Sierra de Guadarrama) was aCatalan lawyer, journalist and politician fromSpain. He was president ofFC Barcelona, a prominent politician for theEsquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), and ERC deputy in the Congress of Deputies in 1931, 1933 and 1936.
Sunyol came from both a wealthy family and a long line of Catalan political militants. He was a member ofAcció Catalana, aleft-wing group andEsquerra Republicana de Catalunya.
In 1928 he became a director of FC Barcelona and in 1930 he founded theleft-wing newspaperLa Rambla, which opposed thePrimo de Rivera regime. In 1931 he was elected to theCortes as anERC deputy. He was subsequently re-elected in 1933 and 1936.
He served as president of both theReial Automòbil Club de Catalunya and theFederació Catalana de Futbol. In 1935 he was elected president of FC Barcelona.[1]
On 6 August 1936, during the early days of theSpanish Civil War, Sunyol was arrested byFrancoist troops in the Sierra de Guadarrama and was then murdered by one of Franco's soldiers.[2] His body was only exhumed in the 1990s, following a campaign byEls Amics de Josep Sunyol (The Friends of 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.
