Buenos Aires
\nDiego Maradona\u2019s entourage and medical team had a plan for the Argentine football star but things \u201cwent out of control\u201d in the lead-up to his death, his daughter Gianinna said in an interview this week.
\nMaradona, regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time, died in November 2020 at the age of 60 of heart failure and acute pulmonary edema \u2014 a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs \u2014 while recovering at home from surgery for a brain clot.
\n\u201cThere was definitely a plan and someone was in charge of it, but things got out of their control,\u201d Gianinna, 36, told news outlets, including AFP.
\nShe spoke on the sidelines of the trial in San Isidro of seven medical workers \u2014 including a neurosurgeon, a psychiatrist and a nurse \u2014 whom prosecutors accuse of gross negligence over Maradona\u2019s death.
\nThe seven deny responsibility and say the star of the 1986 World Cup died of natural causes. They face prison terms of between eight and 25 years if convicted.
\nGianinna blamed Maradona\u2019s former lawyer and representative Matias Morla and his former assistant Maximiliano Pomargo.
\nThe pair are not among the accused in the negligence case, but will stand trial for alleged fraudulent management of Maradona\u2019s brands. The trial date has yet to be announced.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t quite bring myself to think through this plan, that they wanted to kill him. Did Morla want to have my father\u2019s life in his hands? Surely,\u201d Gianinna said.
\n\u2018Power\u2019 over Maradona
\nGianinna said some of the defendants convinced the family in November 2020 that Maradona could only recover from neurosurgery at home, instead of being admitted to a psychiatric clinic.
\nThe clinic could have treated the football star\u2019s addictions, but if Maradona refused to be admitted, he would likely have been placed under a judge\u2019s guardianship.
\n\u201cIt didn\u2019t suit them for my father to be hospitalised in psychiatry, because a whole lot of things would have collapsed for Morla,\u201d Gianinna said.
\nShe said Maradona had given Morla power of attorney in the commercial use of his name.
\n\u201cHe was the one who had the signature, who could sign as if he were my dad,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cHe had the power of having Maradona (under his control) and did whatever he wanted with that power,\u201d Gianinna said, adding that those in his closest circle were \u201calways thinking about the money side of things, not about dad\u2019s health.\u201d
\nGianinna testified at the trial last month and denounced Maradona\u2019s \u201ctotal manipulation.\u201d
\nProsecutors said the footballer was kept in a house in the northern Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre without appropriate medical equipment and sanitation, and that carers committed \u201call kinds of omissions\u201d that resulted in \u201ccruel\u201d conditions.
\nGianinna said she believed the seven defendants were \u201call responsible, some to a greater degree than others.\u201d She singled out Maradona\u2019s then-personal physician Leopoldo Luque as the \u201cmain voice\u201d who managed his team.
\nHowever, she said each defendant bore personal responsibility.
\n\u201cThe nurse who was supposed to check on him before leaving didn\u2019t check on him, and the nurse who arrived didn\u2019t check on him either,\u201d she said.
\n\u2018They were afraid\u2019
\nExpert reports say that Maradona died after several hours of agony, alone on the bed in the house rented for his recovery.
\nGianinna said that the medical team members \u201call had a common line and they all followed it.\u201d
\nShe said Pomargo, Maradona\u2019s former right-hand man and Morla\u2019s brother-in-law, was \u201cthe one who was pulling the strings a bit.\u201d
\nWhen Maradona\u2019s condition worsened, the carers \u201cwere afraid, because in the audio messages (used in the trial), you hear things like: \u2018I\u2019m covering myself legally,\u2019\u201d Gianinna said.
\n\u201cThey never imagined that the prosecutor\u2019s office would act quickly, seize their phones, raid their homes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Buenos Aires Diego Maradona\u2019s entourage and medical team had a plan for the Argentine football star but things \u201cwent out of control\u201d in the lead-up to his death, his daughter Gianinna said in an interview this week. Maradona, regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time, died in November 2020 at the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97230,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97220\/revisions\/97230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}