World football's governing body FIFA said today that it would be ready to help Argentine footballing legend Diego Maradona try a Swiss health clinic in his battle to recover from drug addiction.
A FIFA spokesman confirmed a report in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps saying that it could support Maradona's attempt to pull out of ill-health and cocaine addiction at a clinic in the southern Swiss lakeside village of San Nazzaro.
"This type of step is part of our policy of corporate social responsibility for the organisation," the spokesman at FIFA headquarters in Zurich said. Argentine media reported that the Swiss clinic, which was a possibility along with others in Cuba, where Maradona has already stayed.
The Alabardia psychiatric clinic in San Nazzaro, which is only a few miles from the border with Italy, said it had "almost concluded" negotiations on the football star's therapy. "The head of our clinic is in Argentina where he met the family and doctor of Mr Maradona," Michele Mattia, a doctor at the Swiss clinic told the Swiss news agency ATS.
"We would be very honoured if he chooses our clinic, which is ready to welcome him and give him all the treatment and psyhchological help possible," he added. A day's stay in a private room with treatment and board costs 650 Swiss francs (421 euros, 515 dollars). Maradona's personal doctor Alfred Cahe said in Buenos Aires on Wednesday that the former football star could ask Argentina's president Nestor Kirchner to speed up legal steps that would allow him to leave the country.
Maradona was taken to hospital in Buenos Aires on April 18 with heart and lung problems and he nearly died while in intensive care. After leaving, he was readmitted again shortly afterwards when his condition deteriorated. Maradona has been in a clinic since May 9.
