The unpublished photos of Diego Maradona
By CarlosGayoso
One day in March 1986, a Peruvian friend of mine contacted me by telephone and told me that Maradona was in Paris, but unfortunately he didn’t know his exact location.
Thanks to one of my journalist colleagues, I found out that Maradona and the Argentine football team were staying at the Sofitel Hotel near Porte de Versailles. In fact the ‘Gauchos’ were about to play a friendly match against France at the Parc des Princes, which France later won 2-0. So I decided to go to the hotel with the intention of taking some photographs of ‘The Golden Boy’.
At the hotel I was talking to Jorge Burruchage, a close friend of ‘Dieguito’, who played the position of ‘attacking midfielder’. It’s noteworthy that during the World Cup final in June 1986, Jorge scored the decisive goal against Germany, after a deep pass from Maradona.
I explained to Jorge my intention to do an exclusive interview with Maradona and afterwards he accepted my proposal. I then did then a series of black and white photos and also some colour slides. France-Soir chose the best black and white one and published it on the 26th March 1986.
A day later, I offered a series of my best 20 slides to Jeannine de la Rue, who was responsible at that time for the Photo Department at the France-Soir magazine. She told me that she would do all possible to get them published – but to this day none of them have ever been published (?).
Later on I asked her to return my colour slides which I had given to her a few days earlier. She told me that the 20 colour slides ‘had just disappeared, simply vanished’. Obviously, being upset with this incident, I got in touch with the director of the magazine, and after pointing out to him what had happened, I was able to get some financial compensation.
So, till today the 28th November 2020, where are my colour slides of Maradona? Who stole them?