Diego Maradona’s tormented private life, with its tangled relationships and paternity lawsuits, suggests that distributing his inheritance will be a complex task for attorneys preparing for claims from large numbers of children, those he recognized and those he didn’t.
“There is going to be a big fight. He did not leave a will,” according to a source close to the family who declined to be identified.
Maradona made and squandered millions during his years at the pinnacle of his fame with Barcelona, Naples, and Argentina, and he also made some canny investments. Some reports circulating since his death estimate his estate at around $ 90 million.
Angry over a dispute with his daughter Giannina last year, he threatened to donate all of his wealth, including property, luxury cars and endorsement deals, to charities.
“I know that now, as you get older, people are more concerned with what they leave behind than what they are doing,” he said at the time.
“And I tell everyone that I’m not going to leave anything to them, that I’m going to give everything away. Everything I have in my life I’m going to give away,” he said.
However, according to Argentine law, a person can only give away a fifth of their assets. At least two-thirds must remain in the hands of the deceased’s spouse or children.
Giannina reconciles with Father Maradona
Giannina, 31, had sparked the dispute by accusing the former star’s entourage of not taking proper care of him, which appears to have been a recurring theme in their relationship.
Father and daughter had reconciled when he turned 60 in October, Giannina praised him in a series of loving messages posted on social media with her sister Dalma.
“He is my great example of all the things to do and all the things not to do. I have admired him, yesterday, today and forever. He taught me to forgive, to forgive myself,” Gianinna wrote.
Claudia Villafane was Maradona’s childhood sweetheart from the age of 15. His only wife, they divorced in 2003.
His two daughters, Dalma, 33, and Giannina, were the only ones he recognized for many years.
But there were others, sparking the joke that Maradona had spawned his own soccer team. He threatens to complicate the task of distributing his inheritance for his lawyer Matías Morla.
Multiple Paternity Claims Against Maradona
The soccer icon has been forced to recognize three children over the years, including Diego Junior, born a few months before Dalma.
Conceived with Italian singer Cristiana Sinagra, and born in 1986, months after he captained Argentina to World Cup glory in Mexico, it took Maradona 29 years to acknowledge his paternity. Suffering from Covid-19, Diego Junior was unable to travel from Italy to his father’s funeral.
In 2008, the soccer legend recognized Jana, born in 1996 to his mother Valeria Sabalain, the ex-girlfriend with whom he was closest during the last months of his life.
Another son, Diego Ojeda, was born in 2013 from his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Verónica Ojeda.
But others have filed paternity claims against Maradona, including, according to his lawyer, at least three in Cuba, where Maradona spent years in a drug rehab program.
Arguments between ex-partners and Maradona’s children have been a recurring theme in his life and have been widely disseminated on social networks and Argentine television channels.
His older daughters and mother appeared to be the ones controlling the funeral arrangements Thursday.
However, the World Cup winner was in a legal dispute with his ex-wife over the ownership of hundreds of memorabilia from his career.