Diego maradona died
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Maradona cost twice as much as Ronaldo, claims former Napoli president Ferlaino
Former Napoli president Corrado Ferlaino claims Diego Maradona cost the club “double what Cristiano Ronaldo would cost today” after the star joined from Barcelona in 1984.
The Serie A outfit splashed out a then-world record transfer fee of £5 million to acquire the mercurial Argentine, who had previously broken the same record when arriving at Camp Nou.
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Maradona would provide the inspiration for a remarkable era of success in Naples, as two Italian league titles and the UEFA Cup were captured.
He would also lead Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986, with his legacy as one of the all-time greats firmly cemented.
Getty ImagesMany, though, had raised their eyebrows when Napoli spent big on luring him away from Catalonia.
Ferlaino insists he always knew what he was getting and believes the deal required to land Maradona would eclipse any transfer involving the global superstars of today, such as Real Madrid talisman Ronaldo.
He told AS: "He cost do
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Diego Maradona cost twice as much as Cristiano Ronaldo - ex-Napoli president
"He cost double what Cristiano would cost today," he said. "The intellectuals criticised me -- they said Napoli was a poor city and it was immoral. But it was my money, and I wanted to spend it that way.
"When I signed the contract in Barcelona, I went to a bar and ordered a whisky on the rocks.
"The waiter said to me: 'Are you Italian? What a great deal we're getting out of this with Maradona -- he's fat.' I didn't enjoy that drink at all."
Ferlaino said Maradona's much-publicised problems with drugs and alcohol had not affected his performances for Napoli, for whom he played 259 games.
"He was the perfect athlete, more professional than anyone," he said. "Then, in his house, he had his problems, but on the pitch you could not criticise him.
"At Napoli he did not take drugs -- maybe when he returned home to Argentina he did. But he was always perfect with us."
He said Madrid had never tried to sign Maradona but, along with AC Milan, Juventus and Marseille, had asked about him.
Asked to compare Ma
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Son of Naples
Diego Maradona at Napoli.
Drawing by Sammy Moody
Thore Haugstad
23 Oct 2015
On the sunny day of 5 July 1984—before the cocaine convictions, the affair, the mafia parties—Diego Maradona arrived in a helicopter at San Paolo to be presented as the new signing of Napoli. The fee was £6.9m, a world record. He was twenty-three. At least seventy thousand had paid good money to cram into the cavernous concrete bowl for a welcome whose ecstasy denoted their desperation for a saviour. During the lengthy negotiations, fans had gone on hunger strike to get him. One had chained himself to the railings of the San Paolo. When the transfer was finalised, a newspaper wrote that despite the lack of a “mayor, houses, schools, buses, employment and sanitation, none of this matters because we have Maradona”. The club had wanted him since 1979, when he was at Argentinos, though Maradona’s teenage self knew little about his future destination. “Napoli meant no more than something Italian,” he wrote. “Like pizza.”
It is difficult to overstate Napoli’s longing for
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