Diego Maradona’s convoluted private life, with its tangled relationships and multiple paternity suits, has made distributing his inheritance a complex task for his lawyers. They are bracing for claims from a slew of children — those he recognized and those he didn’t, including at least three from Cuba, where he spent months in a drug rehabilitation program. 

“There’s going to be a big fight. He didn’t leave a will,” according to a source close to the family who declined to be named. 

Maradona made millions over the years, owing to his fame as a football player with Barcelona, Napoli and Argentina. Reports circulating since his death estimate his estate to be around $90 million.

Following a dispute with his daughter Giannina, last year, he threatened to donate all his wealth, including properties, luxury cars and sponsorship contracts, to charity.

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“I know that now, as you get older, people are more concerned about what you leave behind than what you are doing,” he was quoted as saying at the time.

“And I tell them all that I’m not going to leave them anything, that I’m going to give it all away. Everything I’ve got in my life I’m going to give away,” he said.

Under Argentine law, however, a person can only give away a fifth of their assets. At least two-thirds must be left to the spouse or offspring of the deceased.

The two had reconciled, however, by his 60th birthday in October, as Giannina lauded him in a series of affectionate messages posted on social media.

“He is my great example of all the things to do and all the things not to do. I have admired him, yesterday, today and always. He taught me to forgive, to forgive myself,” Gianinna wrote.

Born out of his marriage to his childhood sweetheart Claudia Villafane, Giannina, 31, and her sister Dalma, 33, were the only children Maradona recognized for many years. His only wife, he and Claudia divorced in 2003. 

The football icon has since been forced to acknowledge three other children over the years, including Diego Junior, born a few months before Dalma, Jana (born in 1996) and Diego Ojeda (born in 2013).

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The World Cup winner was also notably in a legal dispute with his ex-wife over ownership of hundreds of items of memorabilia from his career.