Diego Maradona criticises Boca Juniors for snubbing him as coach

Posted Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by theguardian.com

Diego Maradona criticises Boca Juniors for snubbing him as coach
Diego Maradona says he feels betrayed by Boca Juniors, the club that helped make him famous.

Diego Maradona believes he should be the new coach of Boca Juniors and has criticised the club for being on the verge of appointing Julio César Falcioni.

Falcioni's representative, Sergio Greco, said on Saturday that his client had given up his job as coach of the Argentinian club Banfield and was ready to take over Boca when the clausura season starts early next year.

Maradona, 50, has been out of work since he was dropped as Argentina's coach after the World Cup. Since then he has campaigned unsuccessfully for a return to the national team, or with a club.

"I say to the people at Boca that I will be on the bench there one day," Maradona told the newspaper Clarín.

Maradona said he felt betrayed by Boca Juniors, the club that helped make him famous. He ridiculed Falcioni, saying he was "only a goalkeeper", and lambasted the Boca Juniors president, Jorge Amor Ameal, for considering Falcioni.

Maradona was offered a contract in July to stay on as the national coach but the deal required him to drop members of his coaching staff. He declined and was dismissed.

Several months later he said he would consider the compromise but by then the Argentina Football Association had decided on Sergio Batista as the new coach.