Maradona stable; Doc says no cocaine

“He has a lung infection… because of a chill,” Cahe told a scrum of reporters outside the posh Buenos Aires clinic where Maradona is being treated. “He is quite stable and (his progress) is relatively good.”

“It is not related to an overdose,” Cahe had earlier told local radio. “Lately Maradona was not (consuming) cocaine.

Family, friends and well-wishers flooded to the Suizo-Argentina clinic on Sunday evening as news of Maradona’s condition spread.

One teary-eyed fan held aloft a photograph of Maradona in his soccer-playing prime. A banner read “Diego, Argentina loves you”, while passing cars honked their horns.

Maradona, the fifth of eight children of a factory worker, made his international debut in 1977. He moved to Barcelona in 1982 after the World Cup in Spain for $3 million and spent two years with the Spanish club marred by illness and injury.

In 1984 he moved to Napoli for a world record $7.5 million and helped transform a mediocre club into one of the best in Italy.

Now at the peak of his form, he led Argentina to a 3-2 triumph over West Germany in the 1986 World Cup final.

He scored twice in the quarter-final 2-1 defeat of England, one the infamous “Hand of God” when he fisted the ball into the net and the other a stunning solo goal when he ran through the Opposition with the ball seemingly glued to his left foot.

In 1991 he failed a dope test for cocaine and was banned for 15 months. He made his fourth World Cup appearance in the United States in 1994 but tested positive for a cocktail of drugs the day before he was due to make his record 22nd appearance.

Maradona was admitted to a Uruguayan hospital in 2000 for hypertension and an irregular heart beat.

He has spent most of the past two years in Cuba undergoing treatment for drug addiction. Despite his well-publicised drug problems, Maradona still has a widespread fan club with 20,000 people as far afield as Vietnam and Iceland becoming members of the “Church of Maradona”.

He has also been honoured with a musical about the ups and downs of his turbulent rags-to-riches life. But he is now badly overweight and was often barely intelligible in recent local television interviews.

Reuters