Inside the tiny playroom where Diego Maradona died after he was too ill to climb stairs to main bedroom
THIS is the cramped makeshift bedroom Diego Maradona died in – a small ground-floor playroom with a wardrobe doubling up as a door.
Pictures show how a closet was used as a barrier to give the ailing soccer legend a minimum of privacy in the tragic finale to a lifetime of history-making achievements on the pitch.
Maradona’s daughter Jana signed a £12,000 three-month rental contract on a house near Buenos Aires shortly before he left hospital on November 11 following a brain blood clot op.
He was supposed to sleep in an upstairs bedroom with en-suite bathroom that had been prepared for him.
But the ground-floor playroom ended up being used instead because he had difficulty getting up the stairs, reports say.
Pictures of the room where he died last Wednesday were published overnight by Argentinian media.
They show a wardrobe had been dragged into the space leading to the living room and a kitchen-diner on the other side.
Diego, 60, did not even have a proper toilet in the makeshift bedroom.
He made do with a portable orthopaedic loo so he did not have to move too far in the night.
And a TV screen had been moved into the room along with a massage chair.
The cramped playroom contrasts sharply with the spacious luxury of the en-suite bedroom that was meant for him, one of four on the upstairs floor.
The garden outside the house, on the gated San Andres estate north of Buenos Aires, had a basketball net nailed to a tree and a portable football goal which the former Naples and Barcelona star was only able to look at.
A framed sign above a key holder at the entrance poignantly read in English: “Bless this house with love and laughter.”
The last-known footage of the frail football icon, taken by a neighbour days before he died, shows him walking with the help of two men either side as a third followed behind with a chair.
Maradona died of heart failure and pulmonary oedema two weeks after he was discharged from hospital.
Prosecutors are probing allegations of medical negligence surrounding his treatment.
‘AVOIDABLE’ DEATH
A focus of the investigation is whether the home care he received in the rented property was appropriate for someone in his condition.
Maradona’s ex Veronica Ojeda is among those who have given statements to investigators.
Her new partner Mario Baudry claimed the star’s death was “avoidable.”
He added: “The Monday before he died, Diego told Veronica he wanted to see her and she went to the house.
“There wasn’t a doctor around. Maradona didn’t have a normal toilet in his room. It was a mobile one, like the ones at campsites.
“And the room was very small. “It wasn’t the right place for Diego to be in.”
Yesterday, the lawyer of one of Maradona’s nurses claimed he fell and hit his head last week but was not taken to hospital for a check-up.
Attorney Rodolfo Baquè claimed: “Maradona was unable to decide anything – after the fall he was left alone for three days in his room, without being seen by anyone and without being helped.”
Maradona’s daughters have reportedly pinned the blame on his personal physician Leopoldo Luque.
Prosecutors searched the doctor’s office and home on Sunday as a criminal investigation continues.
Dr Luque mounted a passionate defence of his treatment, insisting the World Cup winner should have been in rehab but was “unmanageable” and refused to go.
In an emotional news conference, the doctor said Maradona was hooked on pills and booze, adding: “He punished himself in a way I wasn’t going to allow, not as a doctor but as a friend.”
Between sobs, he added: “You want to know what I am responsible for? For having loved him, for having taken care of him, for having extended his life, for having improved it to the end.”
The neurologist was backed by Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla on Twitter.
He said: “I understand and comprehend the work of the prosecutors but only I know, Dr Luque, what you did for Diego’s health, how you cared for him, accompanied him and how you loved him.
“Diego loved you and as his friend I am not going to leave you alone.
“You left blood, sweat and tears and the truth always wins.”
The home and office of the Maradona’s psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov was also searched yesterday.
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The star had reportedly been prescribed a cocktail of drugs including antidepressants and antipsychotics used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Health experts say the medicines could have put stress on Maradona’s heart.
Experts also claimed that an ambulance should have been stationed outside the rented house 24 hours a day in case of problems after he was discharged, but the advice appears not to have been heeded.