The incident may have explained a later outburst: "I've been to the Vatican and seen the gold ceilings. Fifa quickly made a second award, voted for by a panel of luminaries, which ensured that Pele would also be honoured. However, he did not share the limelight with his rival at the gala awards ceremony: Maradona hurriedly left the stage before Pele could join him.The Brazilian is in good company. Maradona, who has railed against US presidents and his own government, once accused Pope John Paul II of showing him a "total lack of respect" when they met in Rome: the pontiff gave him the same rosary as everybody else rather than a special one. When Fifa, international football's ruling body, conducted an internet poll to find the world's best player, more than 53 per cent voted for Maradona, compared with 18 per cent for Pele.
At another party in Cuba he dressed up as Osama bin Laden, armed with a toy machine-gun.While his career has been blighted by repeated controversies - including an incident when journalists trying to doorstep his house were met by gunfire - such deep flaws to his genius ensure his popularity. In it, Maradona was allegedly snorting cocaine and having sex with his 19-year-old Cuban girlfriend in front of his friends. Diego Jnr has shown some of his father's talent as a footballer.During his time in a psychiatric hospital last year, photographs appeared in a Mexican newspaper which were said to have been taken from a video shot at a party in Havana. As a result of one fling, Maradona lost a paternity suit, after which he was ordered to pay £2,000 a month to an Italian woman, Cristiana Sinagra, to help bring up their son, also called Diego Maradona.
Both before and after his wedding in Buenos Aires 15 years ago to Claudia Villafane (they are now divorced) kiss-and-tell stories were heard. He was regularly injected with cortisone to enable him to play through injuries, which were often suffered in brutal challenges from opponents; at Napoli he used to wear two pairs of shinpads in a vain attempt to protect himself. His final comeback, for Boca Juniors in 1997 at the age of 36, was scuppered by yet another failed drugs test.Drugs have played a major role throughout his adult life. It was while in Italy that he developed a taste for recreational drugs and other pleasures of the flesh. He lost nearly a quarter of his body weight in the space of a month to prepare for the finals and enjoyed one moment of fleeting glory when he scored in Argentina's opening match, only to be thrown out of the event when he tested positive for a cocktail of drugs. The most spectacular of his five subsequent comebacks was in the 1994 World Cup.