Diego Maradona mourns Fidel Castro

Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona, 56, mourns the death of his close friend and father figure Fidel Castro, who died on Friday at the age of 90, remembering he former Cuban leader as a revolutionary who risked his life for his people.

Speaking to DPA at the Arena Zagreb on Saturday, Maradona said;

"The greatest man has died. He was the greatest because he knew everything, he anticipated things and gave the people what the people deserved.

Maradona who has a tattoo of Fidel Castro on his left leg and one of Castro's late comrade-in-arms Ernesto "Che" Guevara on his right arm said;

"I wish the world's politicians would learn five per cent of the words and the legacy Fidel leaves us."

Maradona first met Castro in 1987. At the time, Castro stepped in to help Maradona fight drug addiction.

"I lived in Cuba for four years, and I had a great time. Cuba opened its gates to me when my own country shut them, because many clinics would not take me. Fidel opened the gates of Cuba for me, and thank God I have recovered, I am fine, I get up every morning. The disease is behind me," Maradona said.

"In many ways, I need to thank Fidel for talking to me, for explaining to me the bad things drugs did, the bad things I was doing to myself. And I paid great attention to him and I did very well. That is why I will remember him with all the love in the world and with my whole heart," he said.

Maradona also noted that he was "really, really close" to Castro.

"He would call me at 2 in the morning and I'd go out and talk to him and we would talk until 5:30 in the morning, about football, about politics, about foreign policy, about everything, everything. He would go away, sleep three hours and be up and running again. I would then sleep until 4 in the afternoon," Maradona said.

Maradona also said that Castro was a "second father" to him, describing his death as the greatest pain he ever felt after his own father's death in 2015.

"I cried a lot for him, but he used to say that we should not cry when he left us, that we should continue to lead happy lives."

"Even if Argentinian schools do not speak about Che and Fidel, I will tell my grandchildren and my children who they were, what they did and what they gave the people," Maradona said.

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