Diego Maradona heaped praise on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying he’ll support the socialist leader until he dies.
“It’s an honor to be at his side because he fights for his ideals, for the people, for his country,” Maradona told journalists at the presidential palace as he stood alongside Chavez. “I’m with him until death.”
Maradona also said he plans to travel to Cuba to visit Fidel Castro “if everything goes well” after meeting with Argentine Football Association president Julio Grondona next week, when he’s expected to announce that he’ll remain the coach of Argentina.
PHOTO: REUTERS
He told journalists that Castro looks healthy and mentally alert — something that probably doesn’t sit well with some officials in Washington.
“I saw him doing very well on television, very lucid,” said Maradona, adding that US officials “want to see him dead.”
Chavez warmly welcomed his guest.
“We admire you,” Chavez said, calling his guest “a defender” of Latin America.
Maradona was mobbed by dozens of enthusiastic fans when he arrived on Wednesday at Simon Bolivar International Airport. Adoring fans waved Venezuelan and Argentine flags.
Maradona and Chavez are friends who share a love for sports and leftist political ideals.
Maradona has repeatedly boasted of his friendships with Chavez and Castro. During one visit to Venezuela he praised Chavez — a self-proclaimed “Marxist” — as a great leader who was needed by the poor in Latin America.
The soccer great has a tattoo of Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara on his right shoulder and another of Castro on his left leg, and he’s expressed the desire to get another tattoo — of Chavez.
Maradona lived for several years in Cuba while recovering from drug addiction. There he made friends with the Castro brothers, Chavez’s closest allies.
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