Argentine football legend Diego Maradona will undergo emergency surgery to treat a blood clot subdural hematoma on his brain, his personal physician told reporters on Tuesday, a day after he was admitted to hospital.
Maradona was admitted to the Epensa Clinic in La Plata on Monday with anemia, dehydration and depression, but will now undergo the procedure after a subdural hematoma was revealed by MRI.
Madonna’s personal doctor, Leopoldo Luke, will perform the surgery on Tuesday at the clinic Olivos in the province of Buenos Aires.
“We had an MRI a month ago and everything was normal,” Luke said. “We repeated the study, and we saw a subdural hematoma. It’s hard to see this kind of injury, I don’t know if it’s any kind of injury.
“This is also a routine surgery [Argentina’s] Vice president [Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner] Has passed. The panorama has not changed, it continues to have a similar clinical diagnosis, but now we have a more solid diagnosis.
“He’s alert, he understands and he agrees to the surgery. He’s not offended.”
Maradona’s first-division side operates the Gymnasia y Escrima de la Plata but has dropped out of the team’s training as a precaution to avoid the risk of getting infected with Covid-19 as it is considered in the risk group.
Celebrating his 60th birthday on Friday, Maradona kicked off a 3-0 win over Gimnasia’s Petronato.
He led Argentina to the World Cup title and is considered one of the best players of all time.
Since his playing career ended in 1997, the former Napoli, Barcelona and Boca Juniors star has fought a series of health problems. He was hospitalized in January 2019 with internal bleeding in the abdomen. He also fell ill at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he was filmed passing out in the executive box of the Argentina-Nigeria game.
In 2004, he was hospitalized with serious heart and respiratory problems related to a long battle with drug addiction. He has undergone two gastric bypass operations to control his weight and has also received treatment for alcohol abuse.
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