former players of the team. The penyes would later exhibit their financial prowess in 1953, when they proposed the building of the Camp Nou. Inspiration was drawn from the financial plan Athletic Bilbao, a rival team, used to build San Mamés stadium, where an association of penyes pledged to finance the construction. As a result, the subsequent construction of the stadium put the club into its supporters' hands, giving the penyes political influence over the club, which still lasts today. During the same period, Franco's oppression of Catalonia caused the relationship between the club and its supporters to change. For the supporters, FC Barcelona became synonymous with Catalonia, a feeling incorporated in the club's Més que un club motto (). The socio-political impulse Visca el Barça (Long live Barça), gradually evolved into Visca el Barça i visca Catalunya (Long live Barça and Catalonia) and was the same as a protest-song against the fascist government in Madrid. Outside Catalonia, FC Barcelona has also been seen as being Més que un club (Más que un club) for many forward-thinking Spaniards. It was the left-wing intellectuals that become Barça supporters in recognition of its role in defending democratic rights and freedom. In 1975, the death of Franco marked the beginning of Spain's transition into a democracy and four years later, Josep Lluís Núñez became the first elected president of FC Barcelona. Since then, the members of Barcelona, called socis, have elected a club president. In the early 1980s, one of the most notorious penyes, the Boixos Nois () was founded. The peña who identified with left-wing independentism, repeatedly demanded the resignation of president Núñez, openly defying his presidency through chants and banners at matches. At the same time, the city of Barcelona experienced a rise in the number of skinheads, who identified with right-wing separatism. The skinheads slowly moved the Boixos Nois' political ideology from liberalism to fascism, which caused fractions within the group. Inspired by British hooligans, the remaining Boixos Nois became violent, which often lead to mass-scale arrests. According to the protest organisation L'Elephant Blau (), formed in part by later-president Joan Laporta in 1998, the former president Núñez promoted the emergence of skinheads among the Boixos and gave them permission to roam freely around the stadium, using them for his own political gain. When Núñez resigned in 2000, his vice-president Joan Gaspart took over as president. Gaspart publicly expressed his