Diego Maradona fans have dreamt up a bizarre plan to take the footie legend’s heart to the World Cup.
The scheme would involve removing his organ from a police lab so it could travel to Qatar with the Argentina team.
Advertising agency boss Javier Mentasti outlined the idea on an Argentine radio station.
He said: “I’m sure it’s what Diego would have wanted. If we could ask him, he’d say, ‘Do it.’
“It could go on the team bus, to the hotel.
“I can imagine a procession the day the team leaves for Qatar with people accompanying the bus to the airport.”
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He added: “It could be an initiative to promote the donation of organs.
"Taking Diego’s heart to the World Cup, which is going to be Messi’s last, could be very interesting. It’s a dream.”
Maradona, who died aged 60 in November 2020, was buried without his diseased heart.
It was being kept in formaldehyde at a police lab in La Plata south of Buenos Aires.
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Officials said the organ was removed for tests as part of an investigation into his death which is expected to lead to the trial of suspects including his doctor Leopoldo Luque.
The homicide investigation follows a medical board report which concluded Maradona’s care team acted “inadequately, deficiently and recklessly”.
Doctor Nelson Castro claimed last year Maradona was laid to rest without his heart to prevent football hooligans following Gimnasia – the club Maradona managed – from stealing it.
The organ weighed 503 grams, almost twice that of a normal heart for a 60-year-old.
Argentine football chiefs have yet to react to the idea.
But Cesar Perez, owner of one of the properties Maradona lived in – now a museum – said: “What could be better than Diego’s heart travelling to Qatar, so that players and football lovers can feel that he’s close?”
Maradona, who led his country to victory at the 1986 World Cup, died in his sleep after a brain blood clot op. He had heart, liver and kidney problems.
