Maradona as FIFA president: Five reasons why that would mean chaos

Diego Maradona wants to replace Sepp Blatter after the power-hungry Swiss decided to step down from his position after the recent controversy which lay bare the dirty underbelly of world football’s governing body.

But that would be like a crazier version of Sepp Blatter replacing Sepp Blatter. That would be trading a man who wants to make women’s football popular by promoting shorter shorts with a man who has been filmed by his girlfriend hitting her.

In short, Maradona must be kidding us if he thinks he has a realistic chance. Yes, he’s a legend, one of the best football players ever — but, he’s even more eccentric than Blatter.

Here are five reasons why FIFA will become an even bigger mess if Maradona becomes pres:

Goals scored with hands will count: Certainly the man who lived the lie that he didn’t use his hand to score against England in the 1986 World Cup for so many years will probably think that divine intervention and revenge are reasons enough to score like that. “We blamed the English players for everything that happened, for all the suffering of the Argentine people… before the match we said football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war. But we knew a lot of Argentine kids died, shot down like little birds. This was revenge,” Maradona said about the goal in 2004.

Now there are those who would go with this but then imagine if Wayne Rooney rose high and punched the ball into the net against Germany as revenge for the Manchester Blitz? No, right? Football should be kept separate from politics.

Maradona’s as good with finances as Blatter is: Blatter famously claimed that he cannot keep an eye on what everyone was doing with FIFA money. Chuck Blazer, a former senior FIFA official now cooperating with the FBI in the investigation, made so much money from under-the-table deals that he rented a flat in Trump Tower just for his cats. Maradona is also notorious for financial (in)stability. “Maradona has run into tax problems in Italy, where he has debts totalling tens of millions of dollars accruing from his 1984-91 stint playing with Napoli,” an Associated Press report says.

At least Blatter hasn’t yet become part of the ring of underhand deals that FIFA officials used mainly for broadcast and hosting rights — but his decision to step down has been credited to the fact that investigators were closing in on the big fish. Maradona isn’t that intelligent with his money. He could well wear a gold chain heavier than the World Cup trophy.

One violent man: Maradona punched a reporter in the face last year. 11 years back, he fired an air gun at journalists, which resulted in a two-year suspended sentence. He was recently filmed hitting his girlfriend for using a mobile phone. No, this guy can’t be head of FIFA.

Colourful past: Maradona’s most infamous moment is getting sent back from the 1994 World Cup after testing positive for ephedrine. Maradona scored a stunning goal and celebrated with a whacky face in front of the camera — leading to doubts and his eventual ban. He was also suspended from football for 15 months in 1991 after failing a drug test for cocaine in Italy. Maradona is over his addiction but he has shown a mad flippant side in many other situations which completely rules him out of handling an body already known for its unethical workings.

Finally, he would simply fail the integrity check, and if he doesn’t… … then the football world is doomed. FIFA election rules require mandatory integrity checks for presidential hopefuls within 10 days before they are officially accepted as candidates — if by any chance, he passes this — then we know what sort of integrity checks FIFA has.

Miscellaneous: Maradona also called Pele a homosexual after the Brazilian said he was a negative example. Maradona’s retort was: “Pele lost his virginity to a man.” It was alleged that Maradona’s Napoli lost the 1988 Italian league championship on purpose to help bookmakers. They were apparently rewarded with cocaine and calls girls. It is popular belief that he was connected with the Mafia. Oh and he’s inspired a religion too – the ‘Church of Maradona’ – which has 100,000 members from over 60 countries. Want to become a member? Then you’ll have to recreate Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal against a life sized picture of Peter Shilton.