“Celebrate A title in Second is nice, but it is not a title for Espanyol“, loose Dani Sánchez Llibre, in whose mandate the parakeet club conquered two King's Cups although it also seriously prowled the descent on at least three occasions. That double game, that sneer that over time –which softens everything– will be remembered more for cunning than for imposture, is what he exhibited again, a decade after leaving the presidency, in his reappearance before the public of the Eixample Teatre in the program Flying Parakeet'.
Of their almost hour and a half of conversation, a good part of which accompanied by another former president, Joan Collet – the image of both looking unpalatable looking for paper cockles wrapped in caps – Dani especially expanded on Espanyol's passage through MontjuïcNow that Barcelona seems doomed to also play for a while on the magic mountain. “I know what we were paying,” he said, asked if the Barcelona City Council will demand a rent from the Catalans.
Sánchez Llibre revealed that, by contract, half of each season ticket that Espanyol got from 17,500 with those who left Sarrià, they went to the consistory –they reached more than 30,000–, and also 50 percent of the car parks that the club rented. “If I remember correctly, the years we were there cost us almost 1,000 million pesetas (six million euros), until I said that I did not pay more. They called me every three weeks, but I didn't pay, “said the former president.
His explanation of the ins and outs of Montjuïc did not end there. Dani discovered that, as a result of the tension with the City Council, arranged a meeting with Jordi Pujol, then president of the Generalitat, “and Thanks to him, all the procedures were started to have a new stadium“. It was once they had signed the construction of the same with José Montilla, mayor of Cornellà de Llobregat at that time, when the mayor of Barcelona, Joan Clos, phoned him to propose that they stay in Montjuïc.
“I offered a 99-year contract paying one euro per year, and remodeling the entire Olympic Stadium “, indicated Sánchez Llibre, who admitted that”I would have, but I didn't dare, because the fans were excited about going to Cornellà. I think I was wrong“.
Joan Collet, along with Dani Sánchez Llibre, at one point in the program.
Flying Parakeet (YouTube)
Chen's appearance at a San Juan festival
The other great focus of interest in an interview full of humor by the presenters, Álex Pérez and Brian Domínguez, were the details of his sale of the property of Espanyol, in 2015, to the current president, Chen Yansheng. It all started, according to his version of events, during a dinner at the San Juan festival of 2015 with Ramon Condal, Fernando Molinos and their respective partners.
“Mills He proposed to call the owner of a Chinese restaurant, from Buenos Aires street in Barcelona, who knew a compatriot of yours who wanted to buy a club“He narrated. And, although at first he was reluctant, he took the step:” We meet in my office he phoned Chen and by July 11 we were already in meeting. The next day, we already agreed on the sale price of the sharesDani even added that Chen “told him that he had also been interested in Milan, and he showed me photos with his managers. “
Sánchez Llibre considered that Iván de la Peña was the best signing of his long period in the presidency (from 1997 to 2011), in which the best president of Barcelona with whom he coincided was Josep Lluís Núñez. “Of the rest, I do not find any good”, he added. In a better concept he has himself: he believes that with him in the presidency, Espanyol would not have dropped to the Second Division last season.