The obsession with Maradona’s addiction issues is a media product. There are millions of cocaine addicts, many of whom very famous. Yet the one obsessively shamed and vilified for decades has been a latino who showed the finger to the powerful. Gold medal of conformism

I remember the hate filled news in the 90s in Italy. In 1994 Maradona was expelled from the US World Cup (the only one) as a blatant mafia punishment by the FIFA for his vocal criticism and accusations. He said: “All the other players were only taking aspirins”

Maradona refused the record offers of the wealthiest teams of northern Italy -the 3 that win everything- to play in the southern city of Naples, a team that had never won a championship. He won 2 and often humiliated the best northern teams. In Naples Diego is god 30+ years later

That cost him a lot. The Italian establishment doesn’t live in the working class neighbourhoods of Naples. It’s in Rome, Milan, Turin. When his problems with cocaine became public, after years of veiled racism and envy in the Italian media, they started treating him as scum

The Italian racism (mostly of the wealthy north where Lega was created in the 90s, today’s far right) was then finally unleashed against Diego Maradona in the Italian media. He was all the establishment could despise: southern, working class, unapologetic, rebel, genius

The cherry on top was when Maradona started to openly celebrate the Cuban and the Bolivarian revolution. That was simply a confirmation that the racism and hatred he had been targeted with in the 90s were well deserved

Day after Maradona's doping test in 1994 the president of the FIFA, ultra-corrupt João Havelange, gave a party in honour of war criminal Henry Kissinger. It was at that event that Argentina's boss Grondona threatened JH with suing him for corruption if he expelled the entire team

Maradona was found positive in 1994 for taking a product (Ripped) that one of his assistants bought without prescription at a Walgreens pharmacy. The WADA created in 1999 ruled that the amount of pseudoephedrine found in Diego's urine were not enough to expel him (below 150mg/ml)

Pseudoephedrine and derivatives are also common ingredients of nonprescription cold, cough and allergy medications, that Maradona said he was also given at the time. The scandal led to the conflation with Diego's history of addiction to cocaine (detrimental for his performance)

Worth reminding that Maradona was also persecuted by the media and target of widespread hate in Italy because he eliminated the Italian team at the World Cup in 1990 that was in... Italy. A massive humiliation on top of years beating top teams like Juventus, Milan and Inter.

Maradona provided income for his entire family, including all his brothers and sisters, since he was 15. Considering the enormous pressure he experienced during all his professional life, his costly escapism was way more human than the escapism sold by the football business.

Maradona became strongly political. His many interviews, the film with Kusturica, his vocal support of Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Evo, Lula while they were brutally persecuted reminds trainer Mourinho saying Diego called him when he lost, to express support, never when he won.

Maradona was as uncontrollable in the field as he was in life. The media and the elites could not buy him into obedience and corrupt his progressive politics. In fact it was the opposite: he chose @teleSURtv for a show during Russia’s World Cup, a network under US sanctions

In 1987, at the height of his success, Maradona was invited to receive two awards at the same time: one in the US, another in Cuba. He chose Cuba where he met Castro for the first time. They discussed about politics. Diego considered him a giant, but he admitted that much later

In his many lives Maradona supported the Palestinians, the diplomatic struggle of Bolivia to obtain access to the ocean, the struggle of Cuba and Venezuela against the US blockade, all Pink Tide leaders and endless other progressive causes in favour of the working class

I could go on and on but it should be clear by now why the mainstream media has tried to character assassinate Maradona for decades, especially in Italy, UK, US, Argentina. And why politically he was such a big deal and a real threat to the Western propaganda apparatus.

Maradona will be remembered as a rare fighter, not as the debauched drug addict the elites fantasise with. Emerging from the most humble and exploited social environments is hard, but he went further. Both his alienation and his struggle for a better world became a symbol of ours