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Maradona died: the day Eric Clapton was about to get Diego off drugs

2020-11-26T19:55:45.486Z


The musician contacted him when Maradona was in Cuba recovering from his addictions. He offered to take him to his clinic in the Caribbean. The management of two journalists and the secret that was revealed with the death of 10.- World upheaval: Diego Armando Maradona died


Maria Laura Avignolo

11/25/2020 18:44

  • Clarín.com

  • sports

Updated 11/25/2020 6:56 PM

Nidia is her name.

A Brazilian who had come to London to study English, loved soccer and works as a cleaning staff to pay for her courses.

It was the only link between Eric Clapton, the great British guitarist, and our house in London, on the River Thames.

She also worked with him.

Thus was born the idea of ​​rescuing Diego Maradona, who had come to Cuba to heal from his addictions and who felt worse every day on his cell phone.

Nothing was easy in Cuba.

They changed phones all the time.

His friends took turns visiting him.

Bad company also came.

It was even worse than in Buenos Aires

.

The excesses were the same or worse.

His manager Guillermo Coppola spoke in code: they knew they were being listened to and watched.

Fidel Castro had no interest in the soccer idol's health deteriorating in Cuba.

Together with Ian, another British friend and sports journalist who then worked at

The Observer

Sunday

and sought to protect him, he began a

long process to communicate Diego with Eric Clapton

and be able to take him to Crossroads, his clinic in Antigua, in the middle of the Caribbean, to recover him .

Eric Clapton at an auction of his guitars to benefit Crossroads, the musician's addiction treatment center in Antigua.

Photo: AP

A compromise between two journalists: it would be a professional secret.

We would never write it while Diego lived.

We would never recognize that we tried.

We would not talk to the press or our editors or anyone.

Until today, Diego left and that attempt unites us to him forever

.

CrossRoad was going to be a salvation for Diego.

A center founded by Eric Clapton, the best guitarist in the world, to

cure himself of his addiction to heroin and hard drugs

.

An oasis of peace, serenity, love to calm the demons of the soul.

A commitment to abstinence from alcohol, drugs, mutilation.

A lifestyle change to resist abstinence and personal growth in recovery.

In the island beauty and former British colony of Antigua, in the heart of the blue-water Caribbean and not far from Cuba, Eric had

created and maintained the Crossroad Center since 1988

.

A treatment of the highest quality but accessible to all, for which Diego Maradona was not going to pay a penny.

From alcohol to opiates, marijuana, cocaine, there was

a treatment in twelve steps in that paradise

with a swimming pool, facing the sea, in cabins, a gym, hotel luxuries, tropical friendliness and a treatment according to the needs each.

Eric left on his tour to Japan.

Maradona was still in Cuba and every day he changed his mind and his cell phone.

Until finally the two greats managed to meet on the phone, in the middle of the night for Eric.

With enormous patience, after many attempts at coordination,

Clapton called from Japan.

Diego attended him.

Someone was translating

.

The guitarist told him his admiration, his demons, the need to treat himself, his experience.

The footballer promised to go.

Clapton offered to send for him.

Coppola was excited

, he began to see the light on the road.

Diego Maradona never made it to Crossroads.

He stayed in Cuba.

Eric and Diego never crossed paths again.

He tried to be a contribution to recover a genius, whom I had met in his first home in Chacarita, after leaving Villa Fiorito.

With Tota, her mother, with a new pearl necklace and a hairdresser hairstyle, watching what “Pelusa” said, in one of her first reports with Gente magazine.

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-11-26

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