Diego Maradona’s death could spark a family feud over his estate as he leaves behind five children he recognised as his and six others he has been linked to, Daily Mail reports.
Before he died one of his daughters joked he could make up a starting eleven with his kids after a 23-year-old Argentinian was named as the latest woman fighting to prove she was his daughter.
Maradona had recognised two sons and three daughters by four different women – including his ex-wife Claudia Villafane and former long-term partner Veronica Ojeda – as his own.
Giannina Maradona, one of the former footballer’s two daughters by Villafane, joked last year after the names of three children said to be his in Cuba were made public: ‘Just three more needed for the team of 11. You can do it!!!’
In October last year a 23-year-old brunette called Magali Gil emerged as the latest possible member of Maradona’s brood.
Popular Argentinian TV programme Intrusos said she had a young daughter which would have made the former Naples and Barcelona star a grandfather if he was confirmed as her father.
She is understood to have launched legal proceedings in April last year to try to prove her blood link.
Journalist Adrian Pallares told Intrusos: ‘Her mother didn’t raise her but her adoptive family, who gave her all their love.
‘The time came when she discovered she didn’t belong to that family and that her father could be Diego Armando Maradona.’
In February she broke her silence in Argentina to confirm the situation had not moved forward and begged the football legend to agree to a DNA test.
She had already confirmed on Italian TV she had been adopted as a youngster and her birth mum contacted her at the start of 2019 to tell her who her real father was.
Magali told Argentinian journalist Tomas Dente, speaking at the start of the year for the first time in her home nation: ‘Sadly we still haven’t been able to fix a date for the DNA test.
‘I’d like to think that the predisposition Diego’s lawyer Matias Morla spoke about last December when we met is still there so this can be resolved as quickly as possible and in the best way possible.
‘I’m anxious and worried at what’s happening because this is something which is key for me, my identity and my past.
‘I’m trying to stay calm and understand that we’re talking about Diego Maradona who I know has got a packed diary.
‘I’d just like to urge him to realise there’s a person who’s waiting and needs him to be able to resolve my identify and put an end to this search.’
The Magali bombshell first emerged a month after Santiago Lara, who comes from the same Argentinian city of La Plata where Maradona managed Gimnasia y Esgrima, made a renewed TV appeal for the football legend to recognise him as his son.
The teenager, whose waitress mother Natalia Garat died aged 23 from lung cancer in 2006 and was raised by her ex-boyfriend Marcelo Lara, spoke for the first time in 2016 of his fight to find out who his real father is.
He said at the time: ‘I’ve been told my real father is supposedly Diego Maradona. My dad is always going to be Marcelo Lara but what I’ve been told is that my real father is supposedly Diego Maradona.
‘I think I look like him, the face, the curls, everything. I look at Marcelo and I know we’re not alike. It’s not easy to wake up in the morning with that feeling.’
‘I found out after I went past a newspaper stand near my house aged 13 and saw a magazine front cover with Maradona’s face on it and mine pixellated underneath.
‘I was left in a state of shock because I didn’t know what I was doing in the magazine. I went running home and asked Marcelo what was going on and he explained everything.
‘He told me my mum was well-known on the modelling circuit when she was younger and he told me he had the feeling I wasn’t his son.
‘He told me a DNA test was asked for but was never forthcoming.’
Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla said months before the footballer’s death he would assume his responsibilities as Santiago’s father if the blood link was confirmed.
Morla has previously been quoted as saying ‘Everyone knows that in Argentina there’s Santiago and another person that people are talking about’, although other media in the South American country have speculated the 11th child that would make up Diego’s football team is a fourth Cuban.
The Cuban trio whose names have already been made public are Joana, Lu and Javielito, born after Maradona moved to the Caribbean island in February 2000 to fight drink and drug addictions.
Mr Morla, who admitted in October 2018 the ex-footballer had been ‘naughty’ in Cuba and confessed: ‘There’s going to be a lot of Maradonas, a lot, even if some people don’t like it’, has confirmed the trio met him during the funeral of Fidel Castro.
Over recent years Maradona had recognised his grown-up son Diego Junior, born from an extra-marital affair with Italian model Cristina Sinagra, and 23-year-old Jana who met her dad for the first time nearly six years ago following a court fight by her mum Valeria Sabalain.
Maradona also had two daughters by his ex-wife, 32-year-old Dalma and 30-year-old Gianinna, and a seven-year-old son called Diego Fernando by former girlfriend Veronica Ojeda.
Several Spanish-language memes went viral after Maradona’s lawyer revealed the three Cuban children.
One said: ‘If you were born between 1980 and 2019 and you have extraordinary footballing skills, contact us. You could be a son of Diego Maradona.’
