Diego Maradona in the Spotlight Again After Round 16

Diego Maradona has once again made the news for the wrong reasons.

After Argentina’s loss to France, he decided to support his fellow South American side Colombia who played England in the final last 16 match.

England is not fond of Maradona since his infamous ‘hand of god’ in the 1986 World Cup where he scored with his hand to eliminate England in the last 16 and move on to win the 1986 World Cup.

After his middle finger celebration when Argentina scored against Nigeria in their last group match to qualify he was admitted to hospital for heart problems due to celebrating too much.

England’s game against Colombia was not the beautiful game of the World Cup with a total of 6 yellow cards to Colombia and 2 to England.

The referee had to keep composure and control a tense game with a possible red card for Wilmar Barrios after he intentionally headbutted Jordan Henderson but only received a yellow card.

The American referee Mark Geiger had a tough night but was firm when he gave the penalty to England after Carlos Sanchez holds Harry Kane in front of the referee.

Diego Maradona criticised the referee for being bias due to the language he spoke even though World Cup referees speak English on the pitch.

Maradona has an ambassadorial role in FIFA so the spotlight is greater when he criticised match officials then if he was just a fan of the game.

FIFA responded to Maradona comments about the officials as “entirely inappropriate” and “FIFA strongly rebukes the criticism of the performance of the match officials which it considers to have been positive in a tough and highly emotional match,”

Even Colombia’s striker Falcao said; “I found it peculiar that they put an American referee in this instance. To tell you the truth, the process leaves a lot of doubts.”

Whether FIFA will take any action on these comments is questionable, but it seems Maradona’s behaviour will not change in the near future.