Anil Murthy may become in 2021, if the entity's structures do not change in the coming months, the president of Valencia with a longest term in the 21st century.
Murthy, one of the presidents less popular of the Mestalla club throughout its history, now meets three and a half years in the position, to which he arrived after relieving Layhoon Chan on July 1, 2017, although then he had already been in the entity for a few months, in what was considered a phase of adaptation to the position.
Chan and Murthy, in addition to being the club's most recent presidents, are Singapore-born, as are Peter lim, the largest shareholder of the entity.
Both she, the first woman president of Valencia, and Murthy have become the first two foreigners who have come to be in charge of the club.
Murthy, diplomat of the profession, He lived his moment of least unpopularity during the celebration of the entity's centenary in March 2019 and obtaining the Copa del Rey title two months later.
However, very soon the image of a president that the fans have never considered deteriorated. football connoisseurNor is it close to the spirit of the entity or to the philosophy of its followers, which, together with certain decisions, has distanced it a lot from Valencianism.
The absence of a public in the stadium since March has contributed to criticism of the management model they represent. Lim and Murthy have had a lesser impact than could be expected with the public in the stands, although since the decision to dispense with Marcelino Garcia Toral As a technician (September 2019) and two months after the CEO, Mateu Alemany, Murthy's popular consideration plummeted.
The discreet sports career last season, the confrontation with the club's group of supporters, the departures of emblematic players this summer, the current march of the team in the league or the increase to 3,598 of the number of nine shares to attend a meeting of shareholders of the club are some of the circumstances that have marked the distancing with the environment.
Despite all this, it seems highly unlikely that all these circumstances will prevent his mandate from being the most dragged on in the club in the current century.
Far are the almost two decades in the 20th century of Luis Casanova as the maximum leader of Valencia between the 1940s and 1950s or that of the 1960s with Julio de Miguel at the helm, while Arturo Tuzón He led the club for seven years in the final stretch of the last century.
In the XXI, no president has been in office for four years, but many, Pedro Cortés, straddling the two centuries, Jaume Ortí, Juan Soler or Manuel Llorente have exceeded three, the latter the longest with three years and ten months, compared to three years and six months that the current leader already accumulates in the position.
Therefore, if Murthy season ends, will surpass Llorente, although he will have done so in circumstances marked by the absence of the public as a result of the pandemic and without having been subjected to the trial lived by his predecessors in the meetings and that in his case they would surely have encountered even fiercer criticism than those received by their them.
Those who preceded Murthy endured more than one downpour, but they did not ask the respectable for silence for his boos as it did in the case of the current president of the society.