Visions of Maradona: A Liar, a Cheat, Un Cocaïnomane, Un Dealer. UK and France Regarding a Latin American Player

Abstract

On November 25th, 2020, Argentine icon Diego Maradona died, and the international press and governments wrote their obituaries. Unlike what happened with the Argentine media press, where almost no critical voice was raised to remember the controversial sides of the iconic footballer, both British and French media—despite the well-intentioned decolonising agenda of the last seven decades—could not avoid a racial gaze to remember Maradona’s life and career. Focusing on some specific British ( The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Jacobin) and French ( Le monde, Le figaro, and Liberation) media, I will systematise and analyse their tropes and images to depict Maradona’s passing. Drawing on French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Baruch Spinoza, on French sociologists Grignon et Passeron discussing their conational Pierre Bourdieu, and finally on Erving Gofmann’s category of ‘stigma’, I will concentrate on the ‘regret requests’, ‘miserabilism’ and tensions between ‘minstralisation’ and ‘normification’ findable in British and French media press coverage of Maradona’s death.