Maradona was a God... no matter what he did

IF they have been reading all the wonderful words about Diego Maradona these past few days, our young elite footballers might be confused.

These days, players become pariahs if they have a puff on a shisha pipe, vilified if they break the Covid rule of six.

Maradona (right, with ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson) had a cocaine habit, an alcohol dependency and was mates with Mafia types.

Yet still he was feted as a superhero, his peccadillos part of the package.

And if today’s youngsters are wondering why he was judged by different standards, he wasn’t. His sins were swept aside because he was THAT good.

TO many in my b business, it t is one of football’s great mysteries – and great scandals – that Gordon Taylor, on £2million a year, has been in his job for so long.

When he steps down at the end of this season, the Professional Footballers’ Association Chief Executive will be calling time on four decades in the role.

The figures on his payslip do jar, and the PFA’s startling lack of urgency in the current dementia debate might well verge on the reprehensible.

But the fact remains that he has been the head of a trade union, and if the majority of his members believed he was rotten, Taylor (above) would have been out long before his 40 years were up.

It might well have been down to sheer indifference.

But, as much as we might not like the idea, it seems Taylor has not been, amongst his rank and file membership, the figure of hate some like to think he is.