WORLD CUP USA ‘94: ROUND OF 16 : Spotlight : IT GOES BACK TO CASTRO?
In Bangladesh, fans marched by the angry hundreds and burned the FIFA president in effigy. In Calcutta, candle-lit shrines sprang up at street corners, where fans prayed for the salvation of their idol.
One man in Calcutta, the teeming Bengali city that since the turn of the century has been a hotbed of both leftism and soccer, blamed the United States.
“Diego Armando Maradona is the latest victim of the evil hand of American imperialism,” Supid Bose wrote to a Calcutta newspaper. “It is evident to all, save those who have been rendered blind by the forces of consumerism in the United States that Maradona is the victim of a deep-seated plot.
“Would the hero of Latin American football be banned if he had not sent a signed jersey to the great Fidel Castro?” Bose demanded.
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