Maradona’s children unveil plan for memorial site

The children of football legend Diego Maradona announced the launch of a foundation to honour the Argentine player’s legacy, which would include a memorial site planned in the heart of Buenos Aires.

The “M10 Memorial” is scheduled to open in 2025 in the tourist area of Puerto Madero and will be able to welcome one million visitors a year, according to its official website.

“We want our father to be close to the love of the people, and to grant the wish of all those who want to bring him a flower,” his daughter Dalma Maradona said during a presentation broadcast on YouTube Thursday.

Access to the 1,000-square-metre site will be free for Argentines, but if they make a donation to the Maradona Foundation, they will be able to put their photo on a “heritage wall” at the memorial.

Dalma added that the foundation — chaired by her and four of Maradona’s children from other relationships — arose from a desire to “pay tribute to him (and) preserve his legacy”.

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Earlier this month, a court authorized the transfer of Maradona’s remains from a cemetery to a mausoleum for this future memorial site so that locals and tourists could visit “Argentina’s great idol”.

Maradona died in November 2020, aged 60, while recovering from brain surgery for a blood clot, and after decades of battling addictions to cocaine and alcohol.

He was found dead in bed two weeks after going under the knife, in a rented house in an exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood where he was brought after being discharged from the hospital.

He was found to have died of a heart attack.

But a court is also investigating whether possible negligence on the part of Maradona’s medical team may have led to his death.