Genaro de la Riva Ruiz (9 September 1890 - 25 February 1968) was a Spanish athlete who performed several modalities such as foil, sailing, cricket, field hockey and footballer who played as a midfielder for RCD Espanyol and Catalonia.
[5][6] Like many other RCD Espanyol players of that time, de la Riva was eligible to play for the Catalonia national team, earning one cap in a friendly against France on 1 December 1912, in which he clutched the game's only goal in a 1–0 win.
[3] When he took over the club for the first time in 1920, Espanyol was enduring one of the worst moment in its history, due to the departures of Ricardo Zamora and Clemente Gràcia to Barcelona and José Luis Zabala to Oviedo, all of which in 1919, not to mention the casualties of players who had been recruited to fight in the Rif War (1921–26).
[7] Either way, la Riva saved the entity from its disappearance by facing, together with his brothers, the eviction, as they provided the money for the purchase of the lands and grounds in Can Ràbia for 170,000 pesetas (about 1,000 euros) in which the Sarrià Stadium was constructed and opened in 1923,[4][7] becoming the home of the espanyolistas for more than 70 years until they moved out in 1997.
[2][3] In his second mandate, la Riva promoted and organized Espanyol’s 1926 tour of South America in an attempt to make the presence of Ricardo Zamora profitable.
[9] He prepared Espanyol’s tour in great detail, with commitments contracted in advance and with the claim of the presence of the then legendary Ricardo Zamora in goal, and la Riva himself travelled with the group, which consisted of 12 club players and seven more borrowed from other entities, who played matches in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and Cuba with attendances as high as 60,000.
[4] And after this obligatory parenthesis, he regained his duties of president in 1940, a position he held until 13 May 1942, adding to his record another Copa del Rey title in 1940, the club’s second, and being a finalist in the following year.