Argentine Angst Grows as Maradona Tragedy Sinks In
A stunned Argentine public today poured out sympathy for its fallen soccer hero, Diego Maradona, as the country struggled to make sense out of his arrest Friday on drug possession charges.
"He didn't kill anyone, he didn't rape any one, he didn't rob anyone, he just hurt himself," said Carlos Bilardo, the coach of Argentina's 1986 World Cup championship team, in an interview published in today's editions of La Nacion. "He's a good boy, a simple person. He made a mistake."
"We're dealing with a sick boy and as such we have to help him," said Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem. "What happened to Maradona not only moved but pained the Argentine people, who have him as their idol."
Marcos Franchi, Maradona's manager, who on Sunday put up $20,000 bail to secure his release from jail, said that the soccer star had told him he had been taking drugs for three months. Maradona was captain of Argentina's national team and of the defending Italian League champion Naples club team.
For many people here, the arrest of Maradona was the dreaded confirmation of what they had been trying to deny since late March, when the Italian League reported finding traces of cocaine in his urine after a game against Bari on March 17. The Italian League then suspended him from play for 15 months on March 29.  Ban Extended by FIFA
Soccer's official governing body, the Federation Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA), extended the suspension worldwide today, saying he would be unable to compete until June 30, 1992. The decision was unrelated to the arrest here and based on the positive drug test in Italy.
Pictures of the arrest, spashed over newspapers and television all weekend, were crushing to the fans, who watched their hero, unshaved and apparently intoxicated, being handcuffed and hustled into a police car. At one moment he appeared with a silly grin; the next with glazed eyes and head lolling.
An estimated 400 people witnessed the arrest, shouted insults at the arresting officers and yelling to Maradona, "We love you anyway."
Police officials said the drug investigation was not aimed at the soccer star. Instead the police said their efforts were directed at investigating alleged drug activities of two of Maradona's friends, Ricardo Ayala, 37, and Jorge Perez, 27.
Officials said that began their watch at Ayala's first-floor apartment in the barrio of Caballito, a suburb of Buenos Aires, last Thursday morning when Maradona entered the house and then left. He returned again on Friday. At that point, Federal Judge Amelia Berraz de Vidal ordered the arrests.  Rags to Riches
In a society that seems to struggle to find current-day idols, the 30-year-old Maradona had come to symbolize the rags-to-riches story -- an uneducated boy raised in a shantytown suburb of Buenos Aires, who through natural gifts had risen to the heights of world soccer, and had given Argentina a fresh identity.
In fact "Dieguito," a brightly smiling cartoon character with a splash of black hair, bushy eyebrows and sparkling eye, was used extensively throughout the country in an antidrug campaign and had become a symbol for Argentine youth.
President Menem had appointed Maradona Argentina's national sports ambassador, but stripped him of the position on Friday just before the arrest.
Still, since his return from Italy, public opinion has been overwhelmingly sympathetic. Almost 70 percent of the public considered him an idol earlier in the month, after the final verdict on April 6 by the Italian League to ban him from play.
Until his suspension last month, Maradona had played for the Naples team since 1984 and had helped it win its first two Italian League soccer championships, that country's version of winning the Super Bowl, and an even more prestigious European club championship. He had also been receiving an estimated $2 million a year in salary and three times that in a variety of commercial endorsements.
But relations with the Naples club began to deterioriate as he missed games and training sessions. Eventually he at times was booed by the Italian soccer fans.  SOCCER