Remember the infamous “Hand of God” incident from the 1986 World Cup Final? Well, Maradona has, for the first time, admitted that he deliberately used his hand to punch the ball into the net. But don’t fret. He had his reasons.
“I said to my team-mates to come and embrace me and celebrate the goal. They were a little hesistant. They came over to embrace me but it was as if they were saying: ‘We’ve robbed them’,” he said.
But Maradona, the Argentinian captain at the time, said he assured his team-mates that “whoever robs a thief gets a 100-year pardon.”
He was referring to British control of the Falkland Islands which lie just off Argentina and were scene of a bitter war in 1982 when the South Americans fought unsuccessfully to regain sovereignty of the islands they claimed as their own.
While I think his actions were disgraceful and unsportsmanlike, at least he did not blow himself up, as well as all the English players on the field.
