Lorenzo Sanz

Lorenzo Sanz Mancebo (born August 9, 1943 in Madrid ; † March 21, 2020 there ) was a Spanish businessman and football official.

Life

Lorenzo Sanz's father was known as a prize boxer who also worked as a carpenter and guard in Retiro Park . As a boy, Sanz and his mother sold water bottles at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu to watch Alfredo Di Stéfano dribble. As a youth, Sanz played as a goalkeeper in various lower-class teams in Madrid. Professionally, he worked as a real estate agent. Sanz was considered a self-made man who had made it from the bottom to a multimillionaire .

From 1985 he was director and from 1995 to 2000, succeeding Ramón Mendoza, president of the first division club Real Madrid . In 1997 he signed Jupp Heynckes as coach, with whom he won the 1998 UEFA Champions League . Sanz was known and notorious for his coach wear and tear, in the five years of his presidency many coaches had to vacate their seats in the dugout: Jorge Valdano , Vicente del Bosque , Arsenio Iglesias , Fabio Capello , Jupp Heynckes, José Antonio Camacho , Guus Hiddink , John Toshack and again Del Bosque, who won Real Madrid's eighth Copa de Europa in 2000. Sanz had a keen sense of football talent like Bodo Ilgner , Christian Panucci , Roberto Carlos , Clarence Seedorf , Davor Suker and Predrag Mijatović . After retiring from Real Madrid, he became the owner of Málaga CF in 2006 , arrested on suspicion of fraud in 2008, but acquitted of the allegations in 2013. In 2010 he sold the club to a group of investors from Qatar . In 2018, he was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and escaped jail time after paying a € 3.5 million fine and back taxes of another € 1.2 million.

Lorenzo Sanz had been in the intensive care unit of the Madrid Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz since March 17, 2020 because of a SARS-CoV-2 infection that was only found in the hospital . On March 21st, the 76-year-old Sanz died of the disease, like his son Lorenzo Sanz Jr. communicated. He also suffered from kidney disease . He left behind his wife and five children. He was Míchel Salgado's father-in-law . His sons Paco and Fernando were active as professional footballers, his eldest son Lorenzo was a professional basketball player.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ex-President of Real Madrid died in intensive care. In: spiegel.de . March 22, 2020, accessed March 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Javier Cáceres: The lonely death of the kingmaker. In: sueddeutsche.de . March 22, 2020, accessed March 25, 2020 . 
3. ^ Muere Lorenzo Sanz tras cuatro días en la UCI con coronavirus. In: Libertad Digital. March 21, 2020, accessed March 25, 2020 (Spanish). 
4. ↑ Former Real President Sanz dies of coronavirus. In: kicker.de . March 21, 2020, accessed March 23, 2020 .