Iñaki Urdangarin


Iñaki Urdangarin Liebaert is a retired Spanish handball player turned entrepreneur and the husband of Infanta Cristina, younger daughter of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía. He is the brother-in-law of King Felipe VI. Urdangarin was convicted of embezzling about 6 million euros in public funds for sporting events since 2004 through his nonprofit foundation, the so-called Nóos case, and of political corruption by using his former courtesy title of Duke of Palma de Mallorca as the husband of Infanta Cristina. In June 2018 he was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months in prison; he is currently imprisoned in Ávila.

Early life and education

Urdangarin is the son of Juan María Urdangarin Berriochoa, engineer and businessman in the chemical and the banking industries, and wife Claire Françoise Liebaert Courtain, of Spanish Basque and Belgian descent respectively. He has six siblings. His paternal grandparents Laureano de Urdangarin y Larrañaga and wife Ana de Berriochoa y Elgarresta came from the tiny and humble Basque village of Zumarraga.
He obtained an MBA after a "tailor made study".

Sports career

At the age of 18, Urdangarin became a professional handball player with FC Barcelona Handbol, where he remained until his retirement in 2000. Meanwhile, he studied at the Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas in Barcelona, from which he received a master's degree in business administration.
As a member of the Spanish handball team, he participated in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics, serving as team captain in 2000. The team won the bronze medal in 1996 and 2000.
Urdangarin has been a member of the Spanish Olympic Committee since 4 April 2001, and was elected first deputy chairman on 16 February 2004. In 2001, he received the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sports Merit; which also allows him to be addressed as The Most Excellent.
In September 2001, it was reported that he had been appointed director of planning and development at Octagon Esedos, a company dedicated to sports marketing. At the same time, he retired from professional handball.

Corruption and money laundering

In November 2011, Urdangarin was accused of diverting public funds for his own profit through the non-profit Nóos institute in the 'Palma Arena' case. The Spanish Anticorruption bureau conducted searches at the Nóos institute. The daily El País published a budget document for an international event organized by the Noos Institute. It is believed that he persuaded various Spanish public administrations to sign agreements with the Nóos Institute for both work that was never done and work that was dramatically overstated up to €5,800,000 from public administrations.
In December 2011, the Anticorruption Bureau confirmed that Urdangarin had been sending substantial sums of public money to accounts in Belize and the United Kingdom. That same month, the Royal Household of Spain announced that Urdangarin would not participate in any official Royal Family activity for the foreseeable future, as a result of the scandal. In his 2011 Christmas Eve National Speech, King Juan Carlos stated that "La justicia es igual para todos" ; the following day he clarified that he was speaking generally.
On 6 February 2012, Urdangarin appeared before a judge regarding allegations of corruption. He is being investigated with 14 others, including Jaume Matas, former premier of the Balearics. He appeared again on 25 February 2012 in Mallorca to answer questions before the investigating judge, José Castro.
On 26 January 2013, the Spanish royal household removed the section covering Iñaki Urdangarin from its official website.
Since 12 June 2015, he is no longer referred to as the Duke of Palma de Mallorca following the removal of that title from his wife the Infanta Cristina.
On 10 June 2016 Prosecutor Pedro Horrach called for Urdangarin to be jailed for 19 and a half years and to be fined 980,000 euros. He was sentenced to six years and three months of jail and a fine of €512,000 on 17 February 2017. On 12 June 2018 the Supreme Court of Spain in appeal sentenced Urdangarin to five years and ten months imprisonment. On 18 June 2018, he reported to the prison of Brieva in Ávila.

Personal life

According to the Royal Household, Urdangarin met the Infanta Cristina, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. However Consuelo León Llorente and María Molina maintain in their book, Infanta Cristina, that they met in 1992. They married in Barcelona on 4 October 1997. The couple have four children, all born at Teknon Medical Centre in Barcelona: Juan, Pablo, Miguel, and Irene. As is social custom in Spain, Urdangarin was often accorded the male form of his wife's title with the courtesy title of Duke of Palma de Mallorca since his marriage. Cristina would lose this title in 2015.
The family lived in Barcelona from 1997 until 2009, where Urdangarin was director of planning and development for Motorpress Ibérica and a founding partner of Nóos Consultoría Estratégica. From 2009 to 2011, they lived in Washington, D.C., where he worked for Telefónica, before returning to Barcelona. In August 2013 Urdangarin remained in Barcelona to stand trial, while his wife and children moved to Geneva, Switzerland, to work with the Caixabank Foundation. He joined the family a short time later.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles


Despite the revocation of his wife's Ducal title, Inaki Urdangarin retains the honorific of "The Most Excellent" as a Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Sports Merit.
In view of contradictory Spanish legislation, enacted over the past 30 years, Urdangarin was not entitled to use the ducal title of his wife . But by centuries-old social convention in Spain, he was considered a duke. As such, by the same social convention he was styled as "His Excellency", but as a Grand Cross he is also officially addressed with this style.

Honours

See also List of honours of the Spanish Royal Family by country

National honour