WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : SHARE THE BLAME

“The final indignity this week in a checkered career is enough to make you weep. Maradona has been destroyed as much by villainous treatment on the field over 15 years, and by media hounding, as by his own weaknesses. It is wretched how the public is too unforgiving and sanctimonious toward fallen sporting heroes, when we accept without challenge the idiosyncrasies and psychological failures of the tortured genius in art, science, music or literature, such as Gauguin, Mendel, Elgar or Ibsen.

“Those who now leap to condemn him, especially from within the game, should pause to consider their degree of blame for a maze of problems that have enmeshed him over the years. Like (Northern Ireland’s George) Best before him, he was a boy from humble surroundings overwhelmed by money and fame, which he had not the education to handle, and was kicked a thousand times a season by cynical defenders under the eye of indifferent administrators.

“If Maradona is a victim of self-indulgence, he is also the victim of foul play, inefficient refereeing and disciplinary incompetence. FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, which now expels him from the World Cup, has much to answer for.”