The Soccer Star and the President

by DAVE ZIRIN

If there were a Mount Rushmore of international
soccer, Diego Maradona’s face would adorn it. In 2000
he was named by FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de
Football Association), along with Pelé, as the
greatest player in the history of the sport. But in
his native Argentina, Maradona is a lightning rod for
love, hate, brutal criticism and passionate defense.
He is Muhammad Ali in 1968—if 1968 lasted for twenty
years.

Maradona was in the eye of a media storm last weekend,
as he participated in a rally against George W. Bush
and US trade policy while Bush met with Latin American
leaders at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar
del Plata, Argentina. Surely many wondered why this
stocky, five-foot-three former athlete was so adored,
so incendiary and so intimately involved in a protest
against the American President.

Maradona went from soccer superstar to Argentine folk
hero during the 1986 World Cup, when he avenged the
1982 British defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
Argentina trounced the UK four years later with two
Maradona goals—one with his foot and one with the sly
help of his hand, a score that has become known as
"the hand of God."

His brilliance on the pitch inspired Latin American
writer Eduardo Galeano to write, "No one can predict
the devilish tricks this inventor of surprises will
dream up for the simple joy of throwing the computers
off track, tricks he never repeats. He’s not quick,
more like a short-legged bull, but he carries the ball
sewn to his foot and he’s got eyes all over his body.
His acrobatics light up the field.... In the frigid
soccer of the end of the century, which detests defeat
and forbids all fun, that man was one of the few who
proved that fantasy can be efficient."

But Maradona, nicknamed El Diego Dios, struggled with
hard drugs. He was suspended from the sport for twelve
months in 1991 after testing positive for cocaine.
Then he was banned for another fifteen months for
taking the banned substance ephedrine during the 1994
World Cup. In 1997, he tested positive again, and
eventually slouched to retirement a shell of drug
dependency and obesity.

His real sin, however, at least in the eyes of the
soccer authorities, was a tendency to speak truth to
power. He agitated for international labor standards
to be applied to soccer and asked team owners to "open
the books" so players could know the profit margins
inked with their blood and sweat. Corporate media
treated his drug addiction like a national spectacle.
When arrested for possession in 1991, it was played
live on Argentine television.

Mocked by the media for drug dependency (they called
him "Maracoca"), weight problems and psychiatric
distress, Maradona has come back after on-and-off
stays at Cuban health clinics for much of the past
four years. Now clean and sober, he has experienced a
public resurrection as the host of a popular
Argentinean talk show, La Noche del 10.

Maradona re-emerged on the world stage this weekend,
challenging Bush’s global agenda with the same kind of
daring that once defined his play.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, Maradona had
urged his viewers to join protests. This included
airing parts of a five-hour interview with Cuban
leader Fidel Castro, who said, "We are in solidarity
with you and with Argentina. We have fought for
decades, and we will be happy knowing that you are
there."

Maradona then arrived at the mammoth stadium protest
wearing a "Stop Bush" T-shirt and said, "I’m proud as
an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human
trash, George Bush."

Maradona also sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the packed
rally with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who had
come to the conference vowing to "bury" Bush’s
proposed Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA).
Maradona embraced Chávez to rapturous cheers as he
shouted into the microphone, "Argentina has its
dignity! Let’s throw Bush out of here!"

His stance opened him up to criticism. John Tierney,
conservative op-ed columnist for the New York Times,
slammed Maradona as a hypocrite who benefited from
lucrative endorsement deals with global corporations,
yet now condemns the excesses of global capitalism.
But what Tierney and his ilk don’t understand is that
this only endears Maradona further to his people. The
poor of Argentina know from bitter experience that,
unlike Maradona, they will never taste the fruits of
globalization. The fact that El Diego Dios now stands
alongside them only cements his greatness.

Bush left Argentina last weekend embarassed,
off-message and without a trade deal. That’s hardly
surprising. When a former Major League Baseball owner
like Bush squares off against a soccer deity in Latin
America, you don’t need the sports pages to discover
who has the greater claim to the hearts and minds of
the people. The Fourth Summit of the Americas will be
remembered as a moment when a certain frat-boy smirk
was wiped off the face of the American President by
those who oppose US trade policies—with a little help
from the "hand of God."

Dave Zirin is the author of What’s My Name Fool?
Sports and Resistance in the United States. Contact
him at dave@edgeofsports.com