‘EvenMaradonamust showrespect’
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH The world soccer governing body FIFA takes note of 1986 world champion’s antics in the stands BUENOS AIRES: Diego was a kid in the slum, with a kite, on which he wrote Maradona. He started to run and the kite took flight, but he stayed on the ground.
Diego Maradona may be a giant of the game’s history but even he must show respect to other fans at World Cup stadiums, soccer’s governing body FIFA said on Friday.
Asked about complaints over the 57-year-old making an obscene gesture at other spectators after Argentina snatched a late win on Wednesday, FIFA’s World Cup chief executive Colin Smith said that the former Argentine player was a valued part of its Legends programme, meant to promote the game.
“The players who helped write the history of football have a part to play,” Smith said. “Diego Maradona, obviously one of the greatest footballers who ever lived, is a part of that.”
But he added: “We would expect all players, former players, staff, fans, everyone to behave in a respectful manner.”
During Argentina’s vital group game against Nigeria in St. Petersburg, Maradona drew attention with his antics in the stands, lapping up adulation from fans, unveiling a poster of himself and seemingly falling asleep at one point. Then, after Marcos Rojo’s 86th-minute winner secured Argentina’s place in the last 16, he made a middle-finger gesture with both hands.
“From the hands of God, to the fingers of shame”, read one headline in Latin America, referring to Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal against England at the 1986 World Cup. The Argentine is no stranger to controversy, having once shot at journalists with an air rifle. He has also battled cocaine and alcohol addictions.
His life of excess has, in fact, left the public back home torn between veneration and derision. How to take in his attention-grabbing outbursts is a recurring theme back home in Argentina.
“He thinks that the love that Argentines lavish on him is so great that when he behaves badly we’ll look the other way,” said 55-year-old businessman Bruno Sollner.
Daniel Carballo, 56, said that Maradona “is not an example, at least not for me and most of my friends and my family, no”.
“There are things that are not acceptable, but well, he’s like that,” Carballo added.
Other South Americans tend to perceive Argentines as arrogant, and Maradona’s cockiness and public anguish seem to personify a nation’s suffering at its team’s stuttering performance in Russia.
“He is arrogant, he gets out of control because of arrogance,” said Sollner.
Maradona was adored for his goals against England in the 1986 World Cup due to both the cheat goal he scored with his hand — he called it the “Hand of God” — and another, when he danced past five English players to score what is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest goals.
In Buenos Aires that day, he became a god. It was almost as if he had avenged with a football Argentina’s painful defeat in the Falklands War against Britain four years earlier.
IDOL OF A GENERATION
Irreverent, charismatic and provocative, Maradona remains an idol in Argentina, even for a generation too young to have seen him play and when his name became synonymous with footballing genius.
Paula Garcia Paz, a teacher, was six when Maradona lifted the World Cup in 1986. “I’ll never forget it, that goal against England is something so memorable for Argentines,” she said.
Sollner said “we love him because he has stood up to the powerful, because on the pitch he never gave up, and you can see how much defeat hurts him.
“That devotion for a soccer fan is vital, it’s called sweating for the shirt,” he added.
The antics at the World Cup have been amusing and disturbing by turns, but for Argentines a distracting sideshow to the main event on the pitch.
Carried out of his seat in the VIP box after the match, he was forced to deny rumors he had been admitted to hospital”.
“In Russia he’s caused a stir, he’s a guy who retired decades ago and who won things 30 years ago, but if he sneezes. we’re all on tenterhooks, waiting. That’s unique. That’s Maradona,” said Sollner.”