Football legend Diego Maradona has offered a $10,000 reward to identify the source of reports that he had died after Argentina’s 2-1 World Cup win against Nigeria, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Apparently a man with an Argentine accent had circulated WhatsApp voice messages saying the 57-year-old star had been hospitalised and then died of a cardiac arrest.
“I gave instructions to make public the decision to offer a reward of 300,000 pesos (around $10,000) to anyone who can provide true and accurate information about the author of the audios,” Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla told Argentina’s Clarin daily from Russia.
The Argentine great fell ill after the game was over and had to be helped from his seat.
But Maradona denied rumors, saying – “I’m perfect. I’ve never been better.”
Morla said Maradona had suffered “a spike” in blood pressure.
“It’s a subject that at one time alarmed him. It’s no secret how he lives through a game. How he lived them as a player is how he lives them as a fan,” added Morla, who said Maradona shouldn’t even have been at the stadium for the second half.
“The doctors told him to rest, not to stay for the second half of the Argentina-Nigeria match, but asking that of Maradona is like asking a son not to love his mother.
“For Diego, the team is Dona Tota (his mother), and he will never let her on her own.”.
The audio messages went viral as soon as the game finished.
“Maradona’s sisters heard the news, they could not communicate with me nor with their brother, and one of them suffered a weakness, and the truth is that we cannot let such an outrage go by,” Morla told Clarin.
