Courtesy-The Straits Times
Diego Maradona is a former Argentine footballer from Buenos Aires. He is commonly considered as one of the best football players of all time, and he was one of two joint recipients of the FIFA Player of the Century award.
Diego Maradona’s net worth is estimated to be $100,000 at the time of his death. Maradona died on November 25, 2020 at the age of 60.
Maradona grew up in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a low-income family that had moved from Corrientes Province.
Diego received tens of millions of dollars in salary and endorsements throughout his time as a player and coach. In the early 1980s, he was one of the world’s highest-paid players, receiving several million dollars a year from earnings and endorsements of brands such as Hublot, Puma, and Coca-Cola.
Unfortunately, he had some financial problems later in life, which we will discuss more in this article.
In his career, he was signed for two world record payments when he joined Barcelona and then Napoli, and he was one of the top-paying players in the world. According to the International Business Times, Maradona’s contract with Napoli included a $3 million payment as well as up to $10 million in endorsements. In today’s terms, the $13 million will be worth more than $26 million.
Since retiring from football, he managed seven clubs and guided Argentina to the 2010 World Cup, with differing degrees of success. One of his last coaching jobs was in Mexico, where he reportedly earned $150,000 a month during an 11-month stay. Despite leading Napoli to two Serie A titles against all odds and captaining Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986, Maradona died with a fairly mediocre financial status.
Although his career was extremely prosperous, the football legend faced a number of financial difficulties during the year, causing his wealth to plummet dramatically.
Financial Problems: Diego Maradona was embroiled in a tax controversy with Italian officials that dated back to his time in Napoli. For more than 30 years, delinquent taxes have accumulated penalties and fees. Maradona owes 37 million Euros in outstanding income, including 23 million Euros in interest, according to Italian authorities in 2009.
According to Express.co.uk, Maradona’s net worth was reported to be around $100,000 ($A135,700) at the time of his death. According to Celebrity Net Worth, over the years, police confiscated some of Maradona’s jewelry in order to pay off the loan, which amounted to about €42,000 ($A68,000).
Throughout his career, Maradona said that he was wrongly persecuted by Italian officials, even blaming the debt on a Napoli director for failing to remind him of the tax bill during his tenure there.
Taking that figure as a Maradona’s going rate, you can see a breakdown of that wage per week, day, and so on in the table below.
| Timeframe | Earnings |
|---|---|
| Per second | $0.05 |
| Per-minute | $3.40 |
| Per hour | $205 |
| Per day | $4,931 |
| Per week | $34,615 |
| Per month | $150,000 |
| Per year | $1.8m |
Diego Maradona had what kind of sponsorships?
Puma, the German sportswear giant, has long been a collaborator of Maradona, who started partnering with him during his playing days in the 1980s.
He famously wore Puma football boots during three World Cup games, including Argentina’s 1986 victory in Mexico, and he wore blackout boots during the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
Maradona had a brief flirtation with Japanese brand Mizuno in the mid-1990s, but quickly returned to Puma and has been with them ever since, with Puma also producing a line of boots in his honor.