Defining Maradonian studies

Abstract

The following is an excerpt from the volume Diego Maradona: A Socio-Cultural Study, edited by Pablo Brescia and Mariano Paz (London and New York: Routledge, 2023, 265 pp). This is the first book in English to explore the figure of Diego Maradona as an object of academic study, with the aim of introducing and theorising an emerging field that could be defined as ‘Maradonian studies.’ One of the most iconic football players of all time, Maradona is much more than a sporting legend. He has been read as an emancipatory political figure, a secular saint, a symbol of subalternity and, by others, an anti-hero (cheat, addict, opportunist). This paper includes extracts from the Introduction and Chapter 1 (co-written by Brescia and Paz), discussing the relevance of Maradona today, and his links to Argentinean politics and media. The volume contains individual chapters by different experts on a gamut of areas: Maradona as portrayed in the British press; Maradona and his links to Mexico, Spain, and Italy; the representation of Maradona in literature, cinema, music, and biography; Maradona approached from feminist perspectives; and the phenomenon of the Church of Maradona (among other topics).

The following is an excerpt from the volume Diego Maradona: A Socio-Cultural Study. Edited by Pablo Brescia and Mariano Paz. London and New York: Routledge, 2023 (265 pp.).

Excerpt from the Introduction (pp. 1–4)

Diego Maradona superstar

It is not possible to determine who has been the world’s best footballer. Like any sport, football changes over time, so it is extremely complicated – and perhaps futile – to compare players across different historical periods. Thus, for some, the top spot may belong to Pelé, the Brazilian legend from the 1950s and 1960s and the only player to have won three World Cups. Younger fans might opt instead for Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. However, there can be no argument as to who is the footballer who reached the highest peaks of stardom and mythification. A footballer whose fame stretched to most corners of the world with an intensity that transcended the realm of sport, transforming him into a cultural icon. A footballer who was regarded by so many not only as a celebrity and star but also as a hero, a legend, a redeemer, a martyr, and, even, literally, a god. This person was Diego Armando Maradona.

Maradona was a major figure in what is the most popular sport in the world: football (or soccer in American English, a term that will be avoided in this volume). The sports star is a subcategory within the world of stardom and celebrity, of which Maradona was a prime example. Contemporary celebrities – a product of late modernity rooted in consumer capitalism and mass media (Andrews and Jackson, 2001) – are dependent on their images being disseminated by the media, in a complex network which involves the production and circulation of images as commodities and as texts on the one hand, and the ways in which audiences and consumers receive, and respond to, those images on the other hand (Elliott and Boyd, 2018). For this reason, celebrities are particularly susceptible to be studied as social and cultural products. Stars do not exist outside texts (not only books and films, but also newspaper stories, TV programmes, advertisements, and so on), so in order to understand them, attention must be paid to the social and cultural texts through which stars are produced and reproduced (Dyer, 1998).

No footballer other than Maradona has had so many books written about him, so many films and television programmes revolving around his presence, and so many popular songs composed in his honour. No others have been the object of so many debates that exceeded the world of football and spilled over onto the spheres of politics, economics, law, culture, and art. If, as Dyer suggests, starts should be approached through the texts that talk about them, this book explores for the first time the ways in which Maradona has been constructed as a global icon in print and visual media, in literature, in fiction and documentary film, in biographies and autobiographies, and in music. But the volume also goes beyond these representations to discuss aspects of Maradona that are connected to social practices, such as religion (through the partially ironic, but also partially serious, Church of Maradona, which has thousands of international followers), feminism, and his legacy in the countries and football leagues in which he played or, in the case of the UK, in which he becomes a controversial figure.

Who was Maradona?

The person who achieved global recognition and the unconditional adoration of millions of people was born on 30 October 1960, in the impoverished neighbourhood of Villa Fiorito, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maradona was the first son and fifth child of internal migrants who had arrived from the province of Corrientes, in north-eastern Argentina, in the search for a better life, but had to settle in a villa, or shantytown: Fiorito, where streets were unpaved, and houses often lacked running water and sewerage systems. The entire family would sleep in the only available bedroom in the house, under a roof that leaked when it rained, until as a teenager Maradona was given a professional contract by Argentinos Juniors, and all the family moved to a big house close to the stadium, located in a lower middle-class neighbourhood in Buenos Aires. These details are essential to understand some aspects of Maradona’s life and career, from his playing style to his political sympathies; indeed, they are also the key to understand the processes of self-fashioning and cultural representations that followed his football career and life.

In Argentina, Maradona is considered a national hero who symbolically redeemed the nation in the sporting arena, after the country was defeated by the UK in the Malvinas/Falklands war in 1982. As Simon Critchley has argued, “football is the place where the drama of national identity and non-identity plays itself faithfully out against a history of violence and war” (2018: 66). The two notable goals that Maradona scored in the game against England on 22 June 1986, during a quarterfinal game in the Mexico World Cup, cast him as a redeemer. This image rapidly crossed national borders and made Maradona a global symbol of anti-colonial struggle, of courage and resistance against imperial powers. Most importantly, Maradona became also a purveyor of happiness. In a period of a severe economic and political crisis as the country was emerging from a period of seven years of brutal dictatorship, he gave joy to millions of Argentinians when he led the national team to the championship in that same World Cup.

The image of Maradona as redeemer was further cemented in Italy, where he gained acclaim playing for SSC Napoli in Naples, where he fought yet another iteration of the biblical battle between David and Goliath. Naples, a city in the relegated Italian South, and its football club, had never experienced the scale of success brought about by the team that was built around Maradona from 1984 onwards, which included winning two Serie A championships and the UEFA Cup. Never before the arrival of Maradona had Napoli (or any other team in the south of Italy, for that matter) been able to obtain the scudetto, the first division league title; never did Napoli win another tournament again after Maradona’s departure. For the citizens of Naples, still today, decades after Maradona left the club in 1991, worshipping him contributes to the promotion of social solidarity and feelings of local and regional pride. Immediately after this death, the San Paolo stadium of Naples was renamed “Diego Armando Maradona”.

Studying Maradona; or Maradonian studies

That Maradona elicited the love and admiration of many is evident in films, documentaries, songs, dozens of murals that decorate the walls of Buenos Aires and Naples (some painted on the sides of buildings several stories high), and even altars in which he becomes almost a religious icon, comparable to the Virgin Mary or San Gennaro, a catholic martyr and patron saint of Naples. After he retired from football, he was hired as manager by teams in Argentina, in Mexico, and in the United Arab Emirates; he hosted the successful TV show La Noche del Diez in 2005; he coached Argentina’s national team from 2008 to 2010; he was sought for endorsement by political figures such as Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro; and he was approached for advertisements and merchandising of dozens of products across the world.

This status of global star did not come without controversies as well, expressed across the different cultures and geographies in which his career and life developed. Maradona as a player, icon, public figure, and private person is deeply embedded in a series of complex discourses and meanings. Some of the phenomena described above have, of course, their own problematic undersides, from the nationalist and autocratic narratives that underlie Maradona’s adoration in Argentina to the alleged links between the footballer and Neapolitan criminal networks. Some of his political connections put him close to non-democratic leaders with questionable human rights records, something at odds with his image of a tireless fighter for freedom and equality.

As relevant as Maradona has been for football and politics, as a sporting star, as a popular hero, and as a controversial celebrity who was constantly present in the media, no academic books in English have been published about him. There are several biographies and autobiographies, and dozens of books about him in other languages, but they tend to approach Maradona from a journalistic or, at best, an essayistic perspective that lacks the rigour and comprehensive latitude of academic enquiry. There is a significant corpus of scholarly literature on Maradona made up mostly of individual articles and book chapters, with some exceptions in the form of essay anthologies (in Spanish and Italian). This volume provides a systematic list of such sources which, although meticulous, can ultimately never aspire to be exhaustive.

However relevant these mostly isolated chapters and articles are, Maradona’s importance as cultural icon deserves a more systematic inquiry. Diego Maradona: A Socio-cultural Study is the first edited collection to approach the study of Maradona from several perspectives springing from diverse disciplinary fields. They include approaching him as a cultural artefact that has been constructed through art, from literature to cinema to popular music; discussing the ways in which his professional and personal biography have been represented in mass media; and reflecting on the ways in which his life intersected with specific areas of social life, such as politics, economics, religion, and the law. None of these themes can be studied in isolation, and readers will find how such approaches are interconnected to different degrees in the chapters that make up this collection.

This book is not only about football, in terms of history, its strategies, and its tactics, but mainly about contemporary culture and the making of heroes and stars. It is addressed at those who may or may not have specialized knowledge of who Maradona was and why he remains a central figure in popular culture. Our aim is two-fold. In the first place, to provide a rigorous, academic approach to understanding the cultural significance of a person who happened to be a football player, and whose exploits on the pitch contributed to define not just himself but the myriad of social interpretations made about him. These processes, in turn, resulted in the elevation of a person to a status of myth and legend. Studying these social phenomena requires the mobilization of a theoretical toolbox from several disciplines in the humanities, including cultural studies, philosophy, sport studies, media studies, musicology, literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology.

Our second aim derives from the literature already mentioned: we argue that it is possible to define a niche field at the intersection of cultural sociology, cultural studies, and sport studies: that of Maradona studies. The multiplicity of meanings surrounding him, the sheer quantity of texts that have been produced about his figure (journalistic writing, novels and short stories, comics, cinema and television, music, and increasingly communications in social media), the political and sociological dimensions of the Maradonian phenomenon (including an entire religion, the Church of Maradona), all prove that the footballer cannot be fully accounted for by a series of articles, chapters, or indeed by the existing monographs. Even this collection, entirely dedicated to his study, will not be sufficient and the editors hope it will function as a gateway to themes and topics that could be explored further.

Excerpt from Chapter 1. Maradona and Argentina: Four Takes (pp. 13-14 and 20-28) 1960–∞¹

The plethora of nicknames Diego Armando Maradona received during his career – Pelusa, el Pibe de Oro, Maradó, El Diego, Diegol, El Diez, Diegote, D10S – not only speaks of the attempts to capture his significance as a player and sports celebrity but also to the quantity of information and interpretations readily available about him. His autobiographies and biographies;, the documentaries, TV series, and films covering various aspects of his life; the journalistic writings dealing with him as a player, coach, and celebrity; and the scholarly interest he has drawn (cf. the bibliography included in this volume), underlines the symbolic charge of his name. As we argue in our introduction, this charge begets an entire field of “Maradonian” studies conceived as an infinite source of cultural iconicity.

Within this field, Maradona’s complex and enduring relationship to Argentina, his country of origin, continues to be mapped and interpreted. Following his death on November 25th, 2020, an avalanche of obituaries and commemorative pieces was published on various media in Argentina and across the world, trying to summarize Maradona in a single meaningful sentence. For several Argentinian journalists, it was “the day that football died” (see, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kSt8avOtFA). Another common reaction was best encapsulated by writer Martín Caparrós, who wrote: “He was Argentina” (2020). Not “he represented Argentina” or “he was the most renowned person from Argentina”. Can a football player be a country, even metaphorically? At the same time, Maradona was and continues to be celebrated and idolized all around the world. Where can we place him, then, amid the pull between national and international systems?

In many ways, Maradona is an expression of the glocal, that is, the interconnection between the local and the global in the current world order (Pieterse, 2013; Roudometof, 2015). Sports have been studied from this theoretical perspective where both forms of social existence converge (cf. Andrews and Ritzer, 2007; Giulianotti, 2016; Maguire et al. et al. 2021). Maradona has been recognized by national and multinational companies wishing to hire him to advertise their products; political leaders and governments looking to legitimize certain policies or agendas; and local and global media which always benefited from telling and “selling” stories about him. He is also a product of specific conditions in a marginalized neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Villa Fiorito – so much so that, to fully understand his figure, we need to analyse it in relation to the country in which he grew up and which framed and conditioned his style of playing, his media personality, his political views, and his treatment as an object of study. It all comes back to the source: Argentinian society and Argentinian football.

This chapter offers a reading of the Maradonian phenomenon in relation to Argentinian football, national identity, and cultural dynamics through four dimensions or “takes”: Maradona as a player and manager in Argentinian clubs and for the Argentinian national team; his relationship to the Argentinian media; his connection to politics; and, ultimately, his constitution as an object of study. For each take, we study specific moments, media appearances, discourses, and texts that best capture his identity as a global phenomenon anchored to the country that not only shaped him but was also shaped by him. If, philosophically, football “is about the drama²—about the tension and the emotions it provokes” (Borge, 2019: 192), in our proposition Maradona is a the leading actor in that drama – that is, a participant in actions and processes – as a player, coach, and “discursive hero” in Argentina (Alabarces, 2014: 116; all translations are ours unless indicated otherwise).

Maradona on/and/in the media

Curiously enough, it is after Maradona reached his zenith as a national player (obtaining the Youth Football World Cup in Japan in 1979; reaching two World Cup finals and becoming in the process the best player in the world; returning to the national team in 1994) that the pervasiveness of TV and other visual media specialized in football penetrates not only the quotidian activities of Argentine households but also the national and global imaginaries. Maradona’s trajectory as a player can be seen as a graph of peaks (1979-–1981, 1986-–1990) and valleys (1978, 1982, 1994), but his incarnation of an intense and complex collective national and cultural identity began between 1978 and 1982, solidified and reached its apex in 1986, intensified during the 1990s, and, after having finished his stint on the football field, became more controversial and conflictive during the 2000s. Concurrently, the legitimization of football as an appropriate lens to view social and cultural dynamics was fuelled by an explosion of sports programming at the end of the 20thth century around the world, particularly with the emergence of cable and satellite television and a pointed transition in the way athletes went from being celebrated to being celebrities. In Argentina, the launching of the sports channel Torneos y Competencias Sports (TyC Sports) on September 3rd, 1994, in Argentina is a significant milestone in this regard, as it is, much later, the state-sponsored transmissions of the football show Fútbol para Todos [(Football for Everyone)] that begun in 2009. In this process, the relationship between Maradona and all media was essential.³

Born in a time without social media or even 24/7 TV news coverage, his figure may be analysed in the context of sport celebrity culture and through concepts such as “idol of consumption”, “idol of promotion”, and “vortextuality”, an approach that exceeds the goals of this chapter.⁴ Nonetheless, without a doubt, synchronically Maradona is the first and biggest football media celebrity both in Argentina and the world stage. It is an arch that goes from his “I have two dreams” speech in a TV interview in 1971 when he was ten years old and expressed his desires to play in the World Cup and to win the championship in the youth eighth8th division with his team at the time (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee2On4lZ3e4) to his death at sixty60, when the Argentinian government opened up the Casa Rosada – the government’s house – to allow the public to mourn and pay their respects to their idol. He proved to be the historical hinge between mass media, football, and celebrity culture and created in the process the character Maradona. Such character both used media and was used by media (see the excellent reflections by Rodríguez, 1996). In this section, we point out key Maradonian media moments related to Argentina and focus on a scene of his 2005 television show La noche del Diez ([#10’s Night]).

The first appearance on Maradona in a media outlet occurs very early and relates to the image of the pibe already discussed.⁵ While playing in the youth divisions of Argentinos Juniors, he would entertain spectators at half-time by juggling the ball in the centre circle. The popularity of this performance was described by the newspaper Clarín in September of 1971: “Diego Caradona [sic] earned the applause of the spectators during the Argentinos Juniors vs. Independiente halftime”. The brief article states that “Dieguito seems to have escaped from those fields from the past [the potreros]” and although he “does not look like a pibe of our time though he is; and with that very Argentinian love for the ball our football will never cease to be nurtured by great talents” (qtd. in Fernández and Nagy 1994: 27). The curious mistaken identity – perhaps inadvertently pointing to Maradona’s future charisma, since “cara” means “face” in Spanish – gives way to a well-known equation: at ten years old, the pibe Maradona is deemed a representative of criollo [(creole]) football. Fast forward to 1981. Maradona is the new Argentinean (football) hope. The country’s biggest clubs, Boca Juniors and River Plate, are vying for him. He prefers Boca, which did not have the financial means to sign him. To force the issue, he talks to a journalist in Crónica newspaper and tells him he is not going to River because Boca had already approached him. It was a lie. “That afternoon, Crónica came out with a headline that read: ‘Maradona to Boca’. The operation was underway, we just needed the Boca directors to take the bait as well. They did”, he says in his autobiography (Maradona, 2011: 38). Maradona was twenty-one21 years old. These two examples show that the attraction and exchanges between Maradona and the media were mutual.

Out of the many instances of his interaction with the media as a footballing superstar, three stand out. After the Argentina vs. England match during the Mexico 1986 World Cup, many questions are asked about the first goal. An Argentinian journalist, Héctor Ferrero, presses Maradona on the hand issue and when the player denies it, Ferrero says “perhaps it was God’s hand”, to which the Argentinian captain retorts: “Perhaps”. This is how the phrase “the hand of God” becomes legendary; what is relevant to our discussion is that it originated as the result of an interchange between Maradona and the media. From this moment on, the association of Maradona to divinity has become commonplace, cleverly transformed into the acronym D10S (combining the word God in Spanish with the number Maradona wore on his jersey).

Another important instance in this context is Maradona’s reactions during the Italy 1990 World Cup. During the final match against Germany, the Italian fans at the Olympic Stadium in Rome jeered Argentina’s national anthem. Aware that his face would appear on close-up as the TV cameras focused on players lined up during the musical ceremony, Maradona made sure to famously swear “sons of bitches, sons of bitches” to retaliate for the Italian affront. Then, after the game ended with the defeat of Argentina, the disconsolate captain Maradona wept openly during the award ceremony and refused to shake hands with Joao Havelange, FIFA’s president at the time. In both instances, there was no regard for sports “decorum”; Maradona was consistent to a fault in his rebellious and spontaneous attitudes. Later, a distressed Maradona aired his grievances, being true to the emotive nature of his relationship to football and to Argentina (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6eHdUvbCo).

Lastly, on November 10th, 2001, after a dangerous health crisis that put him in the hospital, his former club Boca Juniors organized a tribute match between Argentina’s national team (coached at the time by Marcelo Bielsa) and a “Stars team” made up of many active and retired footballers. Many more players – such as Pelé— and celebrities were in the stadium, filled with 50,000 fans. Maradona played for the national team which won 6–3, scoring two penalties. When the game was over, he delivered a short speech, thanking the fans and football. Two ideas are prominent in the speech. First, the love received. “I tried to make you happy, and I think I did”, he said to the fans, “and I don’t know how to repay you … this is too much for one person”. Later, he would utter one of his famous phrases: “Just because one makes a mistake, football does not have to pay. I made a mistake and I paid. But … the ball … the ball does not get soiled” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utU80lVfrbw). Besides the insistent references to “paying back” (for debts or sins), what stands out is, on the one hand, his continuation of a self-fashioning where he views himself – not only because of the skilful, joyful way he played but also because of what he achieved – as an instrument of happiness for the people and, on the other, the quasi-religious idea of the purity of football, which stands in a realm above individual mistakes (he is referring to his drug addiction) and above the machinations of the commercial network that robs the game of its authenticity (the fame, the money, the media). This communion with his most treasured object harkens back to that first appearance of Maradona in the media forty 40 years earlier: the “love for the ball” will always feed Argentinian football with unceasing talent; Maradona, as a standard bearer of that tradition, had come full circle.⁶

La Noche del Diez, a sort of late-night talk show, ran from August 15 to 7 November 2005, for thirteen 13 episodes. The high-end production (more than 200 people involved, a dozen or so cameras, numerous dancers dressed as angels), the media interest (hundreds of accredited journalists reported on the first episode), and the A-list of guests – in the context of Argentinian TV – that Maradona interviewed in situ or via satellite (including Raffaella Carrà, Thalia, Gabriela Sabatini, Mike Tyson, Fidel Castro – Maradona interviewed him in Cuba – Lionel Messi, and, very famously, Pelé, with whom he played an epic “head to head”) made the programme a success, consistently beating the competition; the final show in the Luna Park stadium was transmitted live with 5,000 people in the audience (for more on the show cf. Zanoni, 2006; Alabarces, 2007; Safirsztein, 2021 and especially Gagnaj 2007). Perhaps all might be summarized in the catchphrase used by Channel 13 to promote the show: “God [D10S] chose our company to communicate”.

On October 17th, 2005, La Noche del Diez had a special guest: Maradona himself (the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JNtJuXmMzs). It was “Diego” interviewing “Maradona”, a split that both recognizes a process of self-fashioning initiated when, early on, he chose to refer to himself in the third person and also exploits a dual “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hide” nature (on the dualistic nature of Maradona popularized by former teammate Jorge Valdano and former physical trainer Fernando Signorini see Chapter 7 of this volume). In this episode of the show, Maradona becomes an actor who plays himself, fully aware of the image that has been created – together— by the media and himself, in a loop of autoreferentiality and interconnectedness which feedbacks the Maradonian web of meanings. Thus, all Maradonian topics are addressed. About politics, (the question that opens the interview) he says he is undecided who to vote for in upcoming elections; no candidate has managed to convince him. The audience notes a certain discontent with the state of Argentinian political affairs. When he talks about friends – specifically his former manager Guillermo Coppola – he reverts to the aggrieved Maradona, mentions the word “treason”, and states that “one should not benefit [financially] from friendship”. The audience sees disappointment. When it comes time to speak about drugs, “Diego” confesses his regrets to Diego, particularly about his addiction causing him to miss important moments in the lives of his daughters. He also turns the tables and clarifies that he did not gain any advantage by taking cocaine; if anything, the drug prevented him from reaching an even higher footballing potential, since he was often not fully fit for games. The audience claps when he says he has been “clean” for a year and a half. As for football, it gave Maradona everything: fame, money, glory, happiness, and “the people”. Playing around with each other, both the interviewer and interviewee agree that they were “the best in the world”. That is why his tombstone should read: “Thanks for playing football” and “thanks for the ball” (this wish became a reality). The audience chants throughout Oleee oleee oleee … Diegooo, Diegooo. Maradona asks Maradona about his family, and this is where he is at his most emotional: he wants his parents to live long lives to recover lost time in their company, speaks passionately about his daughters Dalma and Giannina, and dedicates a good chunk of the interview to “win back” his ex-wife Claudia Villafañe (a decade or so later he would accuse her of stealing money from him). He imagines himself a grandpa going to watch football matches and dying a serene death, and the audience shares in his sentiments. Finally, Diego and Maradona exchange gifts: tapes with the popular kid’s show El Chavo del Ocho and a replica of Fidel Castro’s army cap.

Diego, Maradona, and the audience all know the interview has been an ingenious simulacrum, a play with cameras and images; the “magic” of TV, an illusion of smoke and mirrors. However, the dialogue strives to be authentic. Several times the casually-dressed Diego, with a sly smile, interrupts the more formally attired Maradona to amicably scold him with phrases like “You are asking this, Diego?” or “come on, we both know”. This interplay points once again to the idea that, as with football, in his relationship to the Argentine media, Maradona knew how to play the game. The question is asked: “Could you live now if nobody recognized you?” The answer: “No, we are too used to it”. This dependency on recognition – of the people and of the media – is encapsulated in the last phrase uttered by Maradona to his TV self: “Whenever you need me, here I am”.

Maradona and politics

The Maradonian self-interview, with its references to the Argentinian elections and Fidel Castro, shows an important aspect that is often associated with the player: the field of politics. High profile footballers rarely get identified with specific political positions, but none has been more closely associated with (in theory) left-wing causes than Maradona. Not many athletes have the images of Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara tattooed on their bodies, so to a large extent the connection between Maradona and politics has been encouraged by the player. He never held an official post in government or political parties, although Carlos Menem – president of Argentina between 1989 and 1999— designated him honorary “sports ambassador” prior to the Italy 1990 World Cup. His political interventions increased significantly after he retired from football.

The relationship between Maradona and politics is concerned with both political readings of Maradona and political views and pronouncements by Maradona over the years.⁷ The discussion in this section involves, locally, Peronism, and globally, the socialist Latin American regimes epitomized by Castro’s Cuba and, in the 21stst century, by the Venezuela governed by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Following Pablo Alabarces, we can distinguish two stages in the political trajectory of Maradona: a proto-political phase during his time as a player and later, as we have mentioned, a “discursive” stage (Alabarces, 2014).

At the national level, Maradona has often been read as a symbol of Peronism, a movement that emerged in Argentina in the mid-1940s and has framed national politics ever since.⁸ Juan Domingo Perón and his second wife Eva (who died in 1952) were charismatic, populist leaders, although it is challenging to situate the movement, and the political party that represents it, the Partido Justicialista, within a single political ideology. As Mariano Plotkin explains:

Peronism divided Argentine society into two irreconcilable camps. During the years of his government, Perón had polarized Argentine society as no other political leader in the twentieth century had done. Moreover, the practical consequences of ten years of Peronist rule allowed for conflicting interpretations. For the vast majority of the working class, the ten years of Peronism meant a real improvement in their living conditions through a notable redistribution of income, their incorporation into the political system and into the state apparatus, as well as the reformulation (in their favour) of old patterns of social relations with other sectors of society. But for those other sectors of society, and particularly for the middle class and non-Peronist intellectuals, Peronism had been a very traumatic experience. (1998: 30)

Maradona’s parents were impoverished internal migrants from the province of Corrientes who travelled to Buenos Aires in search for a better life in the 1950s. They were also strong Peronist supporters; their oldest son would have learnt of his parents’ sympathy from an early age, and he was old enough to understand the hopes generated by the return of Perón to Argentina in 1973, and the resulting disappointment because of his passing less than a year later. These sympathies, however, did not translate into political activism for Maradona in the 1970s and 1980s. In his autobiography, the term “Peronism” appears just once, and Perón is not mentioned at all. On the other hand, the book is dedicated to, among others, Carlos Menem, whose neoliberal economic policies and alignment with the geopolitical interests of the United States have been attacked by left wing Peronist sectors that favour a populist or nationalist orientation (Fidel Castro is also on the list of dedicatees). Alabarces calls this period in Maradona’s life “proto-political”, defined ultimately by minor protestations, such as complaints about the scheduled times for some of the matches in the 1986 Mexico World Cup, played at noon under the scorching sun, and denunciations of a conspiracy against him in the Italy 1990 World Cup (Alabarces, 2007: 146). It must be pointed out, however, that in 1983, before the general elections, he met with four candidates to the presidency, which was a clear signal of the significant influence and media power he already had for being a twenty-three23 -year year-old footballer (for more, see Fernández and Nagy 1994: 158). Maradona’s most evident political statement during this phase, adds Alabarces, does not refer to Argentina: it is his endorsement of Castro and his socialist government in Cuba in 1987.

Alabarces’ (2007, 2014, 2021) main political thesis proposes Maradona as the continuation of Peronism by other means. In a period in which Peronist policies and discourses were displaced from dominant positions in Argentina for several reasons (the death of Perón, the military government in 1976-–1983, and the victory of the Radical Party candidate Raul Alfonsín with the return of democracy), Maradona turns into the myth that kept the popular mandate of Peronism alive: making “the people” happy. If Peronism is defined by giving a voice to the working classes and improving the living conditions of the poor, then in the 1970s and 1980s Maradona symbolically attempted to recover that legacy. Thus, in a de-Peronised Argentina, he fulfilled the role of hero of the people, bringing them sporting if not economic joy, and reigniting a sense of patriotism and identity. Maradona was “a machine that fulfilled dreams and gave away popular happiness. That is to say, a Peronist machine” (Alabarces, 2021 2021: 5).⁹

This theory highlights points of contact between Perón and Eva Perón and Maradona, understood as charismatic figures who were loved by the people, and between Peronism and Maradona, understood as symbolic entities who were able to mobilize the working classes and provide meaning to their cultural and political practices. However, some of the complexities regarding local politics and the significance and appeal of Maradona would challenge this idea. For example, did the happiness brought about by his goals against England in 1986 not transcend the social class and cultural polarization brought about by the Peronist project? At the same time, did the return of democracy and the early stages of the Raúl Alfonsín presidency (1983-–1989) not appeal to the popular masses as a cause of rejoice? Even if such hope was undermined eventually by the severe economic crisis of the late 1980s, this view complicates rigid categorizations and univocal definitions of the popular. Although Peronism, in its different historical versions, always presented itself as a nationalist movement concerned with defending the “true interests” of the Argentinian people and willing to be the standard bearer of Argentinidad [Argentineness], Maradona, interestingly, became a definite emblem for the country when the victory against the English in the Mexico 1986 World Cup was read as a national vindication following the defeat in the Malvinas/Falklands War. The celebrations for obtaining the World Cup certainly undercut all sectors of Argentinian society, which had a non-Peronist party in government at the time.

When Maradona returns to Argentina in the 1990s, his political zig zags are tied to the ups and downs of his relationship with Menem: Maradona initially supports him and the head of the Ministry of Economy Domingo Cavallo, then attacks both, to finally end up backing Menem’s bid for re-election. As Marcela Mora y Araujo writes, “Just like Menem cemented his strength in an alliance between the riches and the poorest, Diego walked that same tightrope: champagne with the world’s aristocracy but an absolute and sincere identification with those who shared in his humble origins” (2021: 90).

After his stay in Cuba in the early 2000s, Maradona’s identification with Peronism would be much more overt in the second decade of the 21stst century. In his second work of autobiography, Touched by God. How We Won the Mexico ‘86 World Cup, he states that “I’ve been a Peronist all my whole life and I’ll die a Peronist, because of my mother and because of Evita”. He also expresses support for Cristina Kirchner, the Peronist president of Argentina between 2007 and 2015 (Maradona 2016: 200).¹⁰ In this book, the terms “Peronism” or “Peronist” appear six times, and the volume is now dedicated to plenty of political figures: the brothers Castro, “Che” Guevara, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez, Cristina Kirchner, and La Cámpora (a youth political organization founded by Kirchner’s son affiliated with Peronism), among others (interestingly, the name of Carlos Menem has been dropped from the list. None of these dedications appear in the English translation).

This turn towards a more outspoken attitude in party politics can be explained, according to Alabarces, because, unable to keep providing joy and uniting the people through his playing, Maradona shifts towards a discursive mode. A key example is his participation in a summit that took place in Argentina in 2005, where Maradona, alongside Latin American political leaders such as Chávez and Bolivian president Evo Morales protested US commercial expansionism in Latin America. His political actions at this stage take the shape of public statements about a myriad of topics, mediatized through the multiple platforms (newspapers, radio, TV, cinema, digital and social media) that echo his opinions.

Alabarces claims that Maradona can be understood as “an empty signifier” available to all those who need to fill it with meaning (2007: 134). The same could be said about Peronism, a movement that has counted supporters on all sides of the ideological spectrum (from the far left to the far right) and whose leaders, when in power in Argentina, pursued divergent policies and agendas. Given these situational “inconsistencies”, it might be misguided to criticize Maradona for his own contradictions on a political level (cf. Salazar-Sutil, 2008: 450; Sebreli 2008: 201). Moreover, Jeffrey Tobin, discussing Sergio Levinsky’s book Maradona: rebelde con causa [Maradona. Rebel with a Cause], makes a significant observation: “Maradona is rebellious without having a consistent political position. In effect, Levinsky’s argument is that political coherence is a peculiarly bourgeois expectation, which Maradona effectively resists” (2002: 61).

This system of apparent unresolved contradictions is evident in Maradona’s geopolitical sympathies and can be retrofitted to illuminate his political stances and alignments in Argentina. His admiration for Castro and Cuba’s revolutionary government – perhaps Maradona’s more consistent political view over the years – led to his endorsement of other leftist leaders in Latin America, such as Chávez and Morales. As it can be seen by shifting through the bibliography included in this book, it is commonplace to consider Maradona as an emancipatory figure who fought against powerful political and commercial organizations in the search for social justice and equality. However, this view overlooks his support for other authoritarian leaders, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko (Makhovsky, 2018), or regimes with questionable human rights records, such as the United Arab Emirates. A common denominator emerges: throughout his life, Maradona was attracted to authoritarian, charismatic, and personalist leaders, and less inclined to adhere to a specific ideological political framework. At the same time, critics of the view that posits Maradona as an icon of anti-capitalist movements point out that he made millions out of advertising and publicity contracts with multinational companies, and that he always benefited financially from the political allegiances he cultivated, from the special treatment he received in Cuba to the lucrative contracts offered by Venezuela to host TV shows in the state TV channel Telesur during the 2014 and 2018 World Cups. Once again, we should tread with care: what are the underlying sociocultural assumptions of those who may censure a person who grew up in dire poverty and wanted to obtain above all financial security for himself and his family? Ultimately, it is impossible to locate Maradona within fixed political coordinates. He is as elusive in the political field as he was on the pitch.¹¹

Maradona’s heart

Can a football player be a country, even metaphorically? Indeed he can, and more. Speaking about H.G. Wells, Borges says that the work that endures “is always capable of an infinite and plastic ambiguity; it’s everything for everyone” (1996). The four “takes” this chapter has offered on the relationship between Maradona and Argentina prove, if nothing else, the infinite and plastic ambiguity of the subject and of his “work” and informs Argentinian cultural dynamics in the 20thth century. Going back to two of his most famous phrases, “The ball doesn’t get soiled” and “sons of bitches, sons of bitches”, Maradona was the one who could attack with his football and his words, but who remained committed to the ball and the sport that made him.

Maradona was buried without his heart. After the autopsy was carried out, it was rumoured that a group of fans from Gimnasia y Esgrima wanted to raid a medical office that held the organ and steal it (Castro, 2021: 358). It might seem like a fictional piece, but it is not. Speaking after a surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain, on October 2020, he said: “I am tired. I’d like to take a vacation from being Maradona”. Is it any wonder that Maradona wanted to take a break from being Maradona? Leading actor in his own drama on and off the field, there is an essential irreducibility to his figure. In his self-interview during La Noche del Diez the informal Diego tells his formal self: “We speak the truth. I know who you are”.

Perhaps we never will.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The media begun using the symbol for infinity after the news of Maradona’s death. See the video put together by his former club Boca Juniors, included in this article https://www.lanacion.com.ar/deportes/futbol/murio-diego-maradona-1960-al-infinito-emotivo-nid2520825/.

2. Maradona himself begins his autobiography saying: “Sometimes I think that my whole life is on film, that my whole life is in print” (2011: 1).

3. For a general view on sports celebrity culture, cf. Sport Stars: The Cultural Politics of Cultural Celebrity (2001), and on Maradona specifically, cf. Archetti (2001), Alabarces (1996, 2014), and Leandro Zanoni’s book dedicated to the “mediatic Maradona” which provides abundant information but only covers until 2006. It is aptly titled Vivir en los medios. Maradona off the record (Living in the Media. Maradona Off the Record), as the author crowns Maradona the “king of media” (Zanoni, 2006: 243).

4. With regards to sport, media, and the heroic paradigm, Whannel speculates that “the related commercialization of sport would serve to heighten the tensions between a media-drive stardom and the romantic innocent expectations of heroism”; later, he coins the term “vortextuality” to explain rapid media exchanges “in an era of electronic and digital information” and its impact in the dynamics of sport (2002: 93, 206). Duffy and Pooley offer a useful framework to read contemporary “mass idols” stating that “the stories our heroes tell – both in self-authored bios and in popular, third-person accounts – testify to larger anxieties in a precarious job economy … In the face of uncertainty and against the backdrop of discourses and practices of neoliberalism, the guiding command is to orchestrate one’s ‘life project’ in earnest … With solids melted into air, responsibility for success or failure is the individual’s alone, or so we come to believe” (2019: 28).

5. Literally a child or adolescent, in Argentinean football a pibe is a young, skilful, and astute player who comes from a low-class background and plays in a creative attacking position.

6. In 1995, Maradona was invited by a group of students to give a speech at the Oxford Union Debating Chamber at Oxford University. There he defined himself as a pibe product of the potreros. Of course, he had to end by playing keepie uppie. The video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4IMsp3bAck.

7. Those who may think politics and sports do not mix might do well to revise the controversies during the Argentina 1978 World Cup that took place with a military junta in power or the discontent of the Mexican people during the Mexico 1986 World Cup, after a strong earthquake devastated Mexico City in 1985. For a global analysis, cf. Football, Politics and Identity (Carr et al. 2021).

8. Juan Domingo Perón was in power in Argentina between 1946 and 1955 (his second term was interrupted by a military coup) and returned for a third period in 1973, cut short by his death in July 1974. Political leaders affiliated with Peronism have been in office in Argentina in 1989–1999, 2002–2003, 2003–2015, and 2019 to present.

9. It is truly amazing to see how Maradona’s figure acquires diverse meanings. A young Maradona in the 1970s says he has “no time” for politics but the military Junta utilized him anyway as an example of national character and achievements and, for a while, his sale abroad was prohibited (cf. the chapter “The Junta’s Boy” in Burns 1996). Decades later, Carlos Ares states that Maradona “is the Perón of the nineties, the only postmodern leader capable of continuing the fight for liberation and against dependency Maradona is also the Evita of the nineties” (qtd. in Levinsky, 1996: 26).

10. Cristina Kirchner’s government was, in ideological terms, completely at odds with Menem. Though the Kirchners endorsed his liberal economic policies in the 1990s, they later reversed many of them, renationalizing companies that he had privatized, and reinitiating the trials of the members of the 1976–1983 military junta who had committed crimes and had been pardoned by Menem in 1989 and 1990.

11. To the political discussion on Maradona, we can add three books published in 2021: the hagiographic Maradona. Fútbol y política, by Julio Ferrer, and the more significant Superdios. La construcción de Maradona como santo laico, by Gabriela Saidon. See also Fernández Moores et al.