Diego Maradona wants role in replacing the ‘mafia’ running Argentina football

Diego Maradona is becoming more vocal about his desire to get involved in helping clean up the mess that the Argentine Football Association finds itself in.

Argentine former football player Diego Maradona arrives to the Argentine Football Association (AFA) headquarters in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Eitan Abramovich / AFP / July 6, 2016

Argentine football was in crisis Wednesday after the national coach followed star striker Lionel Messi in quitting weeks before the Olympics, with legend Diego Maradona seeking to fix the mess.

The country’s President Mauricio Macri slammed corruption and bad management at the Argentine Football Association (AFA), which is paralysed by a squabble over broadcasting rights.

Legendary ex-player and former national coach Maradona had a meeting at the AFA on Wednesday with Fifa inspectors working to overhaul the association.

His move came a day after national team coach Gerardo Martino quit.

Maradona left the meeting in anger, saying his meeting was broken up by officials.

“The meeting had to be cut short. No one cuts short my meetings!” the 55-year-old told reporters.

“I came to talk about football and the AFA’s problems.”

The AFA late Tuesday named women’s team coach Julio Olarticoechea to lead the men’s squad at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro from August 5 to 21.

The AFA’s acting head Luis Segura insisted there was currently “no candidate and Maradona is not there to be Olarticoechea’s assistant”.

Announcing his resignation on Tuesday, Martino complained of power squabbles in the AFA and of clubs not releasing players for next month’s Olympics.

“It is also part of the bad treatment received due to the poor organisation of Argentine football,” Macri, himself a former football executive, told reporters during a visit to Germany on Wednesday.

“We cannot carry on with a system full of bad habits and corruption.”

The courts last month started auditing the AFA’s accounts to determine how it used its state funding over recent years.

A commission from football’s international governing body Fifa is meanwhile investigating the disarray in the AFA.

“I hope that the reforms proposed by this commission will go ahead,” Macri said.

Maradona branded the AFA’s management a “mafia” pointing the finger at its late president Julio Grondona.

“We still have the same Grondona mafia,” he told reporters. “I want an audit. I want a clean and transparent AFA.”

Segura ended his mandate last week and said he was quitting. But he has been forced to stay on as a caretaker administrator until a successor is found amid internal squabbles.

Major clubs in the AFA want to break away and form a “superleague” to get bigger broadcasting revenues.

Smaller clubs fear they will get squeezed out by their bigger competitors.

Macri, a businessman and formerly president of top club Boca Juniors, favors the proposed European-style “superleague” system.

To replace Martino, Argentine media have mentioned possible names including Diego Simeone of Atletico Madrid and Jorge Sampaoli of Sevilla.

After Martino’s whole coaching team quit, Olarticoechea was the only Argentine national coach with a current contract.

Meanwhile the Argentine rated the best footballer in the world, Messi of Barcelona, suffered a fresh blow on Wednesday when a Spanish court handed him a 21-month jail sentence for tax fraud.

Messi said he was quitting the national team following its defeat to Chile in the Copa America Centenario on June 26.

That was Argentina’s third consecutive loss in a major international final.

Fans begged Messi to stay.

The football-mad country and its demanding fans have gone 23 years without a major title – not counting Olympic gold medals in 2004 and 2008.

After the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the country will look to the World Cup in Russia in 2018.

“I cannot believe our participation in the Olympics is in doubt,” Maradona wrote on Facebook ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.

“We are a footballing power.”

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