‘DIEGO’S FIRST XI’
DIEGO Maradona’s death could spark a family feud over his estate between the five kids he recognised and his six suspected love children.
Not long before he died, one of his daughters even joked the Argentine could make up a football team's full starting eleven with his brood.
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Maradona recognised two sons and three daughters including his ex-wife Claudia Villafane and former long-term partner Veronica Ojeda as his own.
The star accepted his two daughters with ex-wife Claudia Villafane - Dalma and Gianinna - along with his son Diego Fernando who he had with girlfriend Veronica Ojeda.
He also had flings with bar worker Valeria Sablalin, who gave birth to daughter Jana Maradona, and Italian woman Cristinia Sinagra, with whom he had son Diego Sinagra.
However, Maradona is alleged to have at least six other children from various flings and some have previously appealed for their dad's love.
Santiago Lara and Magali Gil both made appeals in the media to the football legend, and both are said to have been trying to get a DNA test before he died.
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And the star is alleged to have fathered up to four children while he was living in Cuba, three of whom have been named as Joana, Lu and Javielito.
His family now risk going to war as they face the complicated task of carving up his estate, especially after the star threatened his children would get nothing after his death.
However, the footie legend is estimated to have had a net worth of just £75,000.
While he earned millions during his glittering career - he reportedly had to fork out a large chunk of his fortune during rows over taxes with the Italian authorities.
Daughter Giannina Maradona 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!!!”
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In October last year, 23-year-old brunette Magali emerged as the latest possible member of Maradona’s ever-growing 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 dad.
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.”
She spoke in February 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 out of the blue at the start of 2019 to tell her who her real father was.
"I love him a lot and he's very like me."
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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.”
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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 mum 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 dad 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.”
In 2016, after nearly 30 YEARS of denying paternity, Diego finally recognised Diego Jr Sinagra as his son.
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He went on: “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.”
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Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla said months before Maradona’s death the retired footballer 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".
He went on there will be "a lot, even if some people don’t like it” and has confirmed the trio met him during the funeral of Fidel Castro.
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Over recent years Maradona had recognised his grown-up son Diego Junior - a football star in his own right - born from an extra-marital affair with Italian model Cristina Sinagra.
Rumours ran wild that Pope Francis, who was at the time the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, pressured Maradona to recognise Diego Jr - but his lawyers have always denied this.
Maradona publicly acknowledged Diego Jr, from Naples, in 2016 and said "I love him a lot, and he's very like me".
And 23-year-old Jana who met her dad for the first time nearly six years ago followed after 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 he had a seven-year-old son called Diego Fernando by former girlfriend Veronica Ojeda.
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It is reported Dalma fell out with Jana in a row at the football legend's bedside as he recovered from brain surgery before he died.
Jana was in the waiting room with another daughter Giannina - the ex-wife of Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero.
The trio were joined at the hospital in Buenos Aires by Maradona’s 43-year-old ex wife Verónica Ojeda.
Lingerie model Jana hugged Giannina - who has an 11-year-old son Ben with Premier League ace Aguero, 32 - and other family members.
But Jana then tried to cuddle actress and singer Dalma who screamed: “Don’t touch me!”
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Respected Argentine chat show host Jorge Rial described the atmosphere in the hospital waiting room and said: “They tell me the tension was huge.
“Verónica was apart from the group. Nobody said hello to anyone else. Dalma and Giannina were together, talking to their aunties.
“Jana was also chatting. She has a bit more contact with Giannina.
“During the operation there was silence, only broken by the occasional murmur or the sound of a phone ringing.”
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It was not immediately clear last night who the former Barcelona and Napoli star had included in his will.
In November last year Diego threatened to leave nothing to his children after being forced to deny he was dying.
In a video filmed from what appeared to be his home in Argentina Maradona, who has battled drink and drug addictions as well as weight problems, he fumed about the situation.
He said: “I want to tell you that I’m not dying at all, that I sleep peacefully because I’m working.”
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Responding to new fears about his health his daughter Giannini had sparked by appearing to ask fans to “pray for him” and claiming he was being sedated with pills like a “caged lion”, he added: “I don’t know what she meant to say or what she had interpreted.
“What I do know is that as you get older, people worry more about what you’re going to leave than what you’re doing.
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“I tell you all that I’m not going to leave anything, that I am going to donate it.
"I’m not going to give away everything I earned by running during my life, I’m going to donate it.”
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