Lluís Casanova Giner

Luis Casanova Giner (15 December 1908 – 4 May 1999) was a Spanish sports leader who served as the 12th president of football club Valencia CF, including two mandates in an interim basis in 1936, and one full mandate that lasted for nearly 20 years, between 1940 and 1959, in which the club won half of its fourteen national titles: Three league titles (1941–42, 1943–44, and 1946–47), three Copa del Reys (1941, 1949, and 1954), and one Copa Eva Duarte in 1949. He invested most of his own capital in the club, especially in the rebuilding of a war-torn Mestalla Stadium, to carry out a project that became personal.

Early life and education Luis Casanova Giner was born on 15 December 1908 in Oliva, Valencia, into a wealthy family of industrialists. As a teenager, he was sent to London to study in one of the most important centers of the time, and during his years in the British capital, he developed a deep interest in football, becoming a member of Arsenal F.C. because he had been captivated by the innovative spirit of Arsenal, a pioneer in installing artificial lighting in its Highbury fiefdom. Although he played football from an early age, his physical conditions made him give up his attempts to become a player. This decision was motivated by a complicated and ambitious remodeling of the stadium, aggravated by the flood of 1957.

Cinematic career The Valencian Casanova family had ties to cinema that dated back to the early 1930s when his brother Manuel founded the Compañía Industrial del Film Español (Cifesa) in 1932, which turned Valencia into the Spanish Hollywood.