Argentina
Diego Maradona has died aged 60 after a cardiac arrest according to reports in his native Argentina. The 1986 World Cup winner, widely considered on the greatest players in the sport’s history, underwent successful brain surgery on a blood clot earlier this month.
Maradona last appeared in public on his 60th birthday last Friday before his side’s league match against Patronato. According to local media reports Maradona had been feeling poorly for some time.
He was gifted a plaque and a cake to celebrate the occasion but he did not stay to watch the game and witnesses said he looked unwell and weak.
The former Napoli, Barcelona and Boca Juniors player has suffered frequent periods in hospital over the years, often due to the extravagant lifestyle that accompanied and followed his playing career.
The former Napoli striker was also admitted to hospital in January 2019 with internal bleeding in the stomach.
He also fell ill at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he was filmed passing out in an executive box at the Argentina-Nigeria game.
Maradona was taken into hospital in 2004 with severe heart and respiratory problems linked to cocaine use. He later underwent drug rehabilitation in Cuba and Argentina before a stomach-stapling operation in 2005 helped him lose weight.
In 2007 he checked himself into a clinic in Buenos Aires to help him overcome alcohol abuse problems. Maradona was the subject of a feature-length film exploring his extraordinary time at Italian club Napoli, who he led to their first ever league title. The film also detailed his worrying slide into drug use and his association with organised crime gangs in the city. English fans will forever know him for his infamous ‘Hand of God’ goals in the 1986 World Cup, which he followed with one of the greatest solo goals in the tournament’s history.—AP
