'Hand of God' signs away rights for a million dollars

BUENOS AIRES, AUG. 9. Argentine footballing legend Diego Maradona will pick up a cool million dollars for the rights to his autobiography which comes out in October, his editor Guillermo Schavelzon announced.

According to Schavelzon, it's the ``first time in the history of publishing that an Argentine has received such a sum''.

The 320-page book, which recounts the World Cup winner's life from his childhood to his professional retirement, will be released by Planet Books on October 2 under the title ``I am Diego''.

Co-written by sports journalists Ernesto Cherquis Bialo and Daniel Arcucci with a little help from Maradona, the book will be released simultaneously in Argentina, Spain, Mexico and Colombia.

Schavelzon is pumping the literary event for all it's worth as he also holds the rights to an audio book version, press columns and a special Internet project.

The book will see Maradona look back over his career and how a stellar start - he made his Argentina debut after a handful of first team matches - eventually descended into drug problems, suspensions and eventual retirement in disgrace.

He stopped playing professionally on October 30, 1997, the day of his 37th birthday.

Maradona recalls how ``the first football I had was the best present anyone ever made me in my life. I was three years old and I slept with it cradled in my arms all night.''

The former Argentine captain started writing the book in Havana, where he spent several months earlier this year following his latest brush with cocaine which had brought on cardiac problems.

``I have finally decided to tell all. There remain things to say. With all the things I have already said I am not sure I have yet recounted the most important aspects,'' he said.

Another of his memories is the infamous `hand of God' goal he scored to help defeat England in the 1986 World Cup finals.

Maradona also touches on his relationship with the corridors of power - his meetings with, among others, Argentine Presidents Raul Alfonsin and Carlos Menem, Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro, Spain's King Juan Carlos and Pope John Paul II.

Maradona insists that ``everything I recount in the book is true, I swear that on the lives of my daughters.''

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Section  : Sport
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