Pascual Font de Mora Chabrera (1925-2005) He was the creator of modern Villarreal. The man who for more than 40 years made the club grow and ascend to professional football. He came to the club as a footballer in the 40s, forming part of Foghetecaz (the name with which Villarreal returned after the war), also being one of its most outstanding players.
Fon de Mora lived through the change to Villarreal, of which he ended up being director and president, even while still on the pitch. A figure, that of president, that he maintained for more than 30 years; being a key piece in the great moments in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
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player-president
Font de Mora agreed to lead the club while he was already a player, since in the final stretch of his career there was no one who wanted to take the reins of the entity. Once he left football after twelve years as a footballer, he agreed to become president in 1957, the youngest president to serve.
His first great achievement was promoting the team to the Third Division in the 68-69 season, to play for promotion to the Second Division in July 1970. After losing the first match against Langreo, the people of Castellón played a play-off with Bilbao Athletic, which led them to play a final tiebreaker match at the Bernabeu on July 7, 1970.
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Promotions to Second Division
That day, with legendary players and a line-up that everyone in Vila-real knew by heart: Alapont, Debón, Alcañiz, Marçal, Eusebio, Linares, Martínez, Luiche, Palau, Causanilles and Serrano, promotion was achieved by winning by two goals to one. For a town like Vila-real, that ascent was something historic, the great achievement that had never been thought of.
After two years, the team fell back to the third division, but Font de Mora remained obsessed with returning to that category. After leaving the club for a period, he returned to put together a new project that twenty-two years later returned the team to the Second Division.
It was the 91-92 season, and Villarreal managed to get into the pro
motion for promotion to the second national category. A promotion that they achieved after beating Balompédica Linense in the last game of that phase. After that promotion Font de Mora managed to maintain it for eight years in a row, achieving miracle after miracle each season.
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The man who signed Llaneza
Added to these sporting milestones is having achieved the conversion into a Sports Public Limited Company of the clubsomething that could only be achieved with his intervention and the payment of the majority of the shares of the entity.
After that period in second grade, Alzheimer’s disease took its toll on the leader, who told his family and counselor Jose Manuel Llanezathat you had to look for a sale and an exit.
Llaneza, who came to the club at the hands of Font Mora in 1994, was the one who led the negotiations so that a young Valencian businessman named Fernando Roig, He could stay with the club and the yellow team project.
On May 15, 1997, the transfer of power took place, and the incredible era of Roig began.
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