On March 17, 1991, Diego Armando Maradona took the anti-doping test that led to his first suspension.
Maradona played that afternoon and for Napoli the last game in the stadium that today bears his name.
Days later the Disciplinary Committee of the Italian League notified the positive doping result and the suspension for fifteen months.
Diego Armando Maradona had already risen to the skies as World Champion in Mexico ’86, and was considered a living myth in Naples.
Maradona had won his second Scudetto in 1990, and the 90/91 season began with new success, winning the Italian Super Cup with a victory over Juventus.
On March 17, 1991, Napoli defeated Bari on Matchday 25 of Serie A with Gianfranco Zola’s goal.
Once the match was over, Diego Maradona was drawn, as so many other times, to take the anti-doping test, but the result would be different from the previous ones.
Maradona played that day, without knowing it, his last game in San Paolo, a stadium that was renamed after him.
Seven days later he scored a goal in Napoli’s victory against Sampdoria, which was the last of his 255 games with the Partenopeo team.
After the match and amid rumors of positive doping, Maradona was provisionally suspended by the Italian Federation.
Finally, on April 6, 1991, it was officially announced that the anti-doping test of 10 had returned positive for cocaine, also announcing the suspension of 15 months of inactivity for the footballer.
The sanction imposed on Maradona was not the maximum for cases of positive doping since the Disciplinary Committee itself recognized that cocaine was not used to improve sporting performance.
Diego Maradona assured both publicly and in his autobiographical book that positive doping was a vendetta by the Italian Federation and Joao Havelange, then president of FIFA.
El Pibe de Oro was convinced that his suspension was related to Argentina’s victory in the 1990 World Cup over Italy, eliminating the host from its own tournament.
The suspension marked a break in Maradona’s career, who at the age of 30 left Napoli, Italy, and his best version.
On October 4, 1992 he returned to the fields to begin his brief stay in Seville, the last European station before returning to Argentine Football.
He returned to the limelight representing the Argentine National Team in the 1994 World Cup, but a new positive doping test took him out of the tournament, marking the path towards his professional retirement.
The story is also news on Radio Perfil. Script by Nicolás Ziccardi and voiceover by Pita Fortín.
by Radio Profile
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2024-03-17 13:00:00
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