In the first World Cup after the death of Diego Maradona, a group of Argentine fans started a campaign to have the number 10’s heart taken to Qatar during the tournament.
“El Corazon de Diego” (Diego’s heart, in Spanish) wants to create a movement of popular support for the organ to be in the host country of the World Cup between November and December.
“All the fanatical Maradonians support this. He has always accompanied Argentina, not just in football. We want his heart to travel to Qatar with the national team”, says publicist Javier Menstati, one of the creators of the campaign, to sheet.
Maradona died on November 25, 2020 from respiratory failure. He was 60 years old. Because of the investigation into the causes of his death, he was buried without his heart, liver and kidneys. The organs are in the custody of Justice Argentina, in a building in La Plata, in Greater Buenos Aires.
When he suffered respiratory arrest, he was the coach of Gimnasia y Esgrima, a club in the city. Doctor Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov were indicted for manslaughter. The terms of home care for Maradona, who had undergone head surgery in the month before his death, were not respected.
Last year, a plan was announced by Barras Bravas (the most violent nucleus of the organized groups) of Gimnasia to steal Maradona’s heart. Security has been beefed up.
“There is nothing better that Diego’s heart is in Qatar so that both he and the players and football lovers feel close in some way,” says Cesar Perez, administrator of La Casa de D10S, the residence where the player and his family lived in the neighborhood of Paternal, in Buenos Aires, when the then player started to stand out, in the second half of the 1970s. The place was converted into a museum.
From the tournament in Spain, when he participated for the first time as an athlete, Maradona was present at all the World Cups.
He played in 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994 (when he was suspended for doping). In 2002 and 2006, he toured as a poster boy for sponsors. Four years later he was coach of the Argentine national team. In 2014 and 2018 he presented, from Rio and Moscow, a TV program broadcast by Telesur, a South American multi-state broadcaster financed by leftist governments in Latin America.
He caused a sensation in Russia also in the boxes of the stadiums where Argentina played. He smoked cigars, which is banned by FIFA, danced with fans, made lewd gestures and had a drop in pressure in the team’s victory over Nigeria, which sealed qualification for the round of 16.
“It will be Messi’s last World Cup. For Argentines, there is this energy that has been felt since Diego died. Among the impossible things that have happened in his life, this [levar seu coração para a Copa] would be one more”, completes Menstati.
When the competition starts, the Paris Saint-Germain forward will be 35 years old.
The creators believe that the campaign will only succeed if they don’t own the idea. The proposal is to make it something popular, for everyone in the country. Only then would it be possible to find a legal way to get the family’s consent and pay the costs of transport, storage and security.
One of the proposals considered was that he travel with the Argentine delegation.
“We contacted two players from the national team to be part of the campaign. There are artists who proposed to help and make sculptures that represent Diego’s heart. Organ donation organizations are interested in sponsoring and, with that, bringing visibility for the theme. The repercussion has been quite interesting”, says the publicist.
There is a legal vacuum on the subject because international legislation speaks of transporting organs only for transplants. It wouldn’t be the case. A jurisprudence would have to be created, yet to be defined, on how to take the heart of a dead person, with the consent of his family, to another country and then bring him back to the country of origin.
According to him, there are people from Naples who got in touch and offered to help with the mobilization. It was for the club from the Italian city that Diego Maradona lived his peak and led the team, until then irrelevant on the national scene, to two Serie A titles and a Uefa Cup.
“We decided to do the opposite. [do que normalmente é feito]. We do not present a closed proposal. We put the idea so that the initiative belongs to everyone and from there we can see what will happen”, concludes Menstati.
The souvenir used by the campaign’s creators is one of Maradona’s most famous quotes about himself.
“If I die, I want to be born again and be a football player. And I want to be Diego Armando Maradona again. I am a player who has given people joy.
I have worked in the news industry for over 10 years. I have a vast amount of experience in covering health news. I am also an author at News Bulletin 247. I am highly experienced and knowledgeable in this field. I am a hard worker and always deliver quality work. I am a reliable source of information and always provide accurate information.
