Barcelona’s one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary: When their star striker was kidnapped for 23 days

Friday, November 29, 2024, marks the 125-year anniversary of the formation of FC Barcelona.

To mark the event, The Athletic is working a collection of items, celebrating the folks and the moments who’ve helped make the membership what it’s immediately.

We now have informed you concerning the story of Joan Gamper, the person who based the membership, and run via a number of the most important numbers in Barca’s historical past. Now, we have a look at the scarcely plausible story of when their star striker, Quini, was kidnapped in 1981…

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“Quini’s spouse known as me at 4 o’clock within the morning. She informed me he hadn’t come dwelling that night time and that she hadn’t heard something from him.”

Former Barcelona president Joan Gaspart is speaking to The Athletic about one of the crucial uncommon incidents within the membership’s historical past.

It was Sunday, March 1, 1981, and Gaspart was vice-president. Barca had overwhelmed Hercules 6-0 on the Camp Nou and La Liga’s high scorer Quini had offered two objectives. Barca appeared on track for the Spanish title — one thing that had not occurred since 1973-74, in Johan Cruyff’s taking part in days and when Quini was scoring objectives for Sporting Gijon as a substitute.

There was a way of euphoria within the metropolis and among the many gamers, who determined to go for dinner at a restaurant close to the bottom.

It was the restaurant Can Fuste, a 15-minute stroll from Camp Nou. Everybody was ready for the then 31-year-old star striker Quini, full title Enrique Castro Gonzalez — however he by no means arrived.

“There have been seven or eight of us,” Carles Rexach — one of many gamers within the squad tells The Athletic. “(Barca centre-back and Quini’s shut pal Jose Ramon) Alexanko met us and mentioned he didn’t know the place he was or the place he had gone.”

The final anybody had heard from Quini was a TV interview during which he spoke about their upcoming sport in opposition to Atletico Madrid. Atletico have been in first place, two factors forward of Barca and the sport was essential.

Mari Nieves, Quini’s spouse, had flown again from Gijon that afternoon along with her two kids, as she did on many weekends. After the match, her husband stopped by the home to choose up his issues earlier than getting in his Ford Granada to go to Barcelona airport to choose her up.

“His spouse (when he didn’t seem on the airport) had known as a number of hospitals, police stations or anyplace the place they may know one thing,” Gaspart says. “He didn’t present up. No person knew something. We went to his home at 5 or 6 o’clock within the morning considering, ‘The place may he be?’”

Gaspart, then-Barca president Josep Lluis Nunez and Alexanko spent the night time at Nieves’ home and instantly known as the police.

The following day, the report of Quini’s disappearance turned official. The three males stayed with Nieves till she obtained a name that started to offer her solutions.

The case induced a stir throughout the nation. It was reported in all the most important media retailers and rumours started to unfold about whether or not the Basque separatist group ETA had been concerned after terrorising Spain with a lot of assaults.

Nieves obtained the primary of 21 calls from her husband’s kidnappers. It was not ETA however three folks with no legal file and no jobs who had tried to resolve their monetary issues by kidnapping one of many nation’s greatest soccer stars and demanding a big ransom.

“The information unfold like wildfire throughout Barcelona,” Josep Maria Minguella, a former agent and a determine who has been carefully linked to the membership over time, tells The Athletic.

“There was quite a lot of consternation. With ETA lively, there have been quite a lot of kidnappings on the time, however it had by no means occurred to a participant. It was paying homage to what had occurred to (Actual Madrid legend Alfredo) Di Stefano a couple of years earlier (when he was kidnapped by Venezuelan guerrillas in 1963).”

As Rexach places it 43 years later, “At first we thought it was a joke as a result of it was unimaginable.”

On his manner dwelling from the airport, Quini had stopped to replenish his automobile when the three males all of a sudden assaulted him and compelled him into the car at gunpoint. They later deserted the automobile and put Quini in a hood and wood crate in a van and drove to Zaragoza, round a four-hour drive to the west of Barcelona.

There they transferred him to a hideout, the place he spent 23 days locked up.

Quini had been high scorer 5 instances in La Liga and had scored 73 objectives throughout 4 seasons with Barcelona.

“He was among the finest gamers in Spain and was consistently within the media highlight,” Rexach says. “They knew kidnapping him was going to have a big effect.”

“He was such a charismatic man and he was good to folks,” Juan Carlos Perez Rojo, a participant who was within the ‘B’ staff however educated with Barca’s senior aspect, tells The Athletic. “They knew everybody was going to step up and provides him the cash he wanted.” Rojo and Quini turned buddies a while after the kidnapping and he’s into his forty sixth yr at Barca, the place he works as a scout.

“As an individual he was quite simple, a great particular person, variety,” says Minguella, who helped signal Quini from Sporting Gijon. “He didn’t deserve all of the issues that occurred to him and his household. It’s a type of moments while you realise that life may be unfair.”

It later emerged the abductors’ important goal had been the then-Barcelona coach Helenio Herrera. Once they discovered he had a chilly, they modified their plans as they feared he may die through the kidnapping.

Within the days that adopted, the police labored in secrecy.

“There was quite a lot of upheaval,” says Minguella. “The police managed the state of affairs and didn’t need too many individuals to intervene.”

“The police didn’t need folks to get in the best way, even when they wished to assist,” provides Rexach. “So they only let Alexanko be the one to assist.”

Barcelona requested La Liga to postpone the match in opposition to Atletico that weekend. The Spanish high flight denied that request, Barca performed and misplaced 1-0 on the Vicente Calderon, Atletico’s former dwelling. The German midfielder Bernd Schuster, who threatened to not play, blamed Nunez and Herrera for the match going forward.

“There have been individuals who didn’t need to play till they discovered him and there was a little bit of a battle as a result of the coach thought we needed to play even when he wasn’t there,” says Rexach. “It was sophisticated.”

Barca performed two extra video games with Quini nonetheless lacking, dropping 2-1 to Salamanca and drawing 0-0 with Actual Zaragoza. They might end 4 factors behind champions Actual Sociedad in fifth place.

“That yr we didn’t win La Liga as a result of we spent these three weeks simply fascinated about Quini,” Rexach says.

In the meantime, the police continued to do their job. As calls from the abductors have been comprised of telephone containers, they requested Telefonica, Spain’s main telecoms firm which owned them, to cooperate.

“The abductors went fully unnoticed,” Juan Martinez Ruiz, one of many 20 officers accountable for the case, later informed Spanish journal Libero. “That was the principle motive it took so lengthy to find them. They’d by no means damaged a dish, that they had no earlier convictions, they weren’t associated to criminals… They have been completely regular.”

The police issued a press release interesting for the general public to assist and needed to cope with an avalanche of false leads. Telefonica had bother figuring out the origin of the calls.

In one in every of their calls, the abductors informed Nieves they have been nervous due to how a lot Quini ate, given they now not had sufficient cash to purchase sandwiches. They have been demanding 100 million pesetas for his ransom (value round €600,000 immediately), a determine that had risen from the unique 70 million pesetas.

In one of many makes an attempt to pay the abductors, the police requested Alexanko to go to La Jonquera, a Catalan city near the French border, with a briefcase stuffed with banknotes. The abductors requested him to cross the border, however the police refused as a result of the French authorities would have arrested him on the spot.

On March 20, the three males requested the cash to be paid right into a Credit score Suisse checking account.

“Barca have been on the lookout for options as a result of the abductors have been very absent-minded,” Minguella says. “Those that kidnapped him didn’t have very clear concepts about what ransom they wished to ask for and have been altering their technique.

“Nunez’s secretary known as me to seek out out if I had any manner of getting cash in Switzerland, the place the abductors requested for the cash to be deposited. I used to be doing enterprise in Luxembourg and Switzerland and I had cash there. I mentioned sure and agreed to assist with the fee.”

The checking account was within the title of one of many kidnappers, Victor Miguel Diaz Esteban. The Swiss police labored carefully with their Spanish counterparts to trace him down. Diaz Esteban went to Switzerland to withdraw a million pesetas in U.S. {dollars} on March 24; inside 18 hours, the police had arrested him after discovering the lodge the place he was staying and following his steps when he left for the airport to catch a aircraft to Paris. He was interrogated and confessed to holding Quini in a basement in Zaragoza.

In lower than a day, the police launched him and arrested a second kidnapper.

Quini later informed buddies this was when he was most afraid as a result of he heard quite a lot of noise and thought the abductors would kill him. However on the night time of March 25, radios throughout Spain introduced he had been freed.

When he arrived in Barcelona, an enormous crowd was ready for him on the police station — Quini needed to exit to greet them.

“When he got here out he was in a really dangerous state, you may see it,” Rexach says. “All I do know is that I gave him a hug. He was hidden in a spot with no mild for 23 days. It’s one thing you wouldn’t want in your worst enemy.”

“He wished to play and get again to regular as quickly as potential,” Rojo says. “They gave him psychological assist, I heard about it from team-mates a while later.”

Quini returned for the final 4 video games of the La Liga season, taking part in once more barely per week after his launch, and was obtained with full honours at each floor he performed at. He performed 90 minutes in every of his first three league video games after his return — scoring twice in a 5-2 win in opposition to Almeria — and nonetheless completed as La Liga’s high scorer with 20 objectives. He additionally scored in each legs of the Copa del Rey semi-final and twice within the last in opposition to his boyhood aspect Sporting Gijon within the last as Barca lifted Spain’s nationwide cup.

“On each pitch, once they mentioned Quini’s title, there was 5 minutes of applause,” Rojo says. “He had a spectacular reception.”

The three kidnappers have been sentenced to 10 years in jail and given a 5 million peseta fantastic.

“They have been easy folks, with out nice potentialities,” Quini informed a press convention after his launch. “They fed me with sandwiches as a result of they couldn’t afford any extra.”

“There have been team-mates who made jokes after that,” Rojo says. “Generally, once we have been in motels after dinner while you go to the room, there have been team-mates who would go into his wardrobe to scare him when he arrived.”

Quini spent three extra seasons at Barcelona, ending with 73 objectives in 141 appearances for the Catalans. He then returned to Sporting Gijon in 1984, the place he spent the final three years of his taking part in profession. He labored as a coach, staff delegate and director of institutional relations for them.

The kidnapping had a really actual affect on Quini, who died of a coronary heart assault aged 68 in 2018. He was given an emotional tribute by the Camp Nou, with an enormous tifo unfurled that learn ‘Quini, sempre recordat’ — Quini, at all times remembered.

“This affected him rather a lot all through his life,” Rexach says. “He spent many days locked underground in a really small cell. He didn’t need to speak about it as a result of each time he did, he relived the trauma.

“He did inform me that when he was fed by the abductors he typically stored (the meals) to himself. He thought that in the event that they hunted them down and killed them, it could be unattainable for anybody to seek out him there and he would starve to dying.

“He had these 23 days in his head till the day he died. Folks suppose he forgot it rapidly, however he didn’t. When somebody would ask him a query (about it), you’d see him change the topic in a short time.

“It’s essentially the most unbelievable factor that has occurred to Barca in its historical past.”

(High photographs: Getty Photos; design: Eamonn Dalton)