The project has caused a row with his former wife Claudia Villafane, who remains close to him. She is said to be unhappy about the possible impact on their teenage daughters.
Marco Risi, the Italian director who is filming Maradona: Hand of God — a reference to the phrase the footballer used to describe the infamous goal he scored with his hand against England in the 1986 World Cup — has met the Argentinian and won his backing.
“What interests me is to tell the story of the darkest side of Maradona — his desire to self-destruct, the years in which he was a slave of cocaine. I want to understand how he fell and how he was reborn,” said Risi.
The director said he made it clear to Maradona during talks in Buenos Aires that the £6m film would explore his drug abuse during his time in Italy when he played for Napoli — he is reported to have taken up to 6g of cocaine a day — and his links with bosses of the Neapolitan camorra, the local equivalent of the mafia, who helped to turn him into an addict.
Also featured are his extra-marital affairs. His childhood sweetheart Claudia divorced him in 2003 after he admitted to having fathered an illegitimate son in 1986.
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The film, which includes archive footage of his exploits on the pitch, shows how Maradona recovered from addiction thanks to his daughters, who appealed to him with the words: “We need you, what are you going to do about it?” “Maradona wasn’t very interested in the film, he was concerned only for his ex-wife and their daughters,” the director said. The couple had two girls, Dalma, now 18, and Giannina, 15.
Claudia is blocking Risi’s plan to have Maradona appear in the film with a message of hope for his daughters and for young people.
“Claudia is worried about what the girls will think of the complicated period in Naples, when he did all sorts of things and she was incapable of stopping him,” said Risi, whose film is due to be released in September.