Catalan businessman Carles Vilarrubí Carrió died early this morning in Barcelona at age 71. A key figure in the founding of Convergència i Unió and close to Jordi Pujol, he also served as vice president of FC Barcelona from 2010 to 2017.
Carles Vilarrubí Carrió, an influential Catalan businessman, has died in Barcelona at age 71. Close to former Generalitat president Jordi Pujol, Vilarrubí was a militant of Unió Democràtica de Catalunya and helped found Convergència i Unió (CiU), the coalition that governed Catalonia from 1980 to 2003 and 2010 to 2015.
In business, he chaired the CVC Grupo Consejeros holding and the Willis S&C insurance brokerage, and served as vice president and advisor at Rothschild & Co bank. He also contributed to media: as secretary general and deputy director of Catalunya Ràdio, board member of Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió nominated by CiU, and co-founder of private station Rac1. He also led the Generalitat's Entidad Autónoma de Juegos y Apuestas.
Vilarrubí was involved in the Pujol family trial at the Audiencia Nacional, which began a month ago, facing charges of money laundering (three years in prison) and falsifying commercial documents (two years).
At FC Barcelona, he was vice president under Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, resigning in 2017 over disagreements about playing the La Liga match against UD Las Palmas on October 1, the day of the illegal self-determination referendum called by Carles Puigdemont.
In 2015, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi for his economic and social contributions. Since 2016, he had presided over the Academia Catalana de Gastronomía y Nutrición. He was married to Sol Daurella, president of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and had three children.
