By Florencia Pessarini
Buenos Aires (EFE).— Jana Maradona, the daughter publicly recognized by Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona in 2014, told EFE that her relationship with her father was marked by legal battles from birth and later by the controversial trial against the doctors who treated him before his death, whom she says “lacked humanity.”
Raised without luxury but without deprivation in Ingeniero Adolfo Sourdeaux, a working-class neighborhood outside Buenos Aires, Jana said she always knew she was a Maradona.
Her mother, Valeria Sabalain, began a paternity lawsuit shortly after Jana was born in 1996, following a brief relationship with Diego while he was married to Claudia Villafañe.
Three years later, the courts granted Jana Maradona’s surname after the football star failed to attend three DNA test summonses.
“That paternity case was followed by lawsuits to update child support,” Jana said. “My entire life, I was in court with my dad.”
She recalled seeing him on television as a child without grasping his global fame. “I didn’t know how important he was,” she said, adding that her family shielded her from the myth surrounding him. “They didn’t say, ‘Your dad is the greatest ever.’ Because if he were, he would know me.”
Recognition and reconciliation
At age 14, following the sudden death of her uncle, Jana decided she needed to see her father “at least once in my life, eye to eye.”
After several failed attempts, she approached Maradona in 2014 at the gym where he trained, introducing herself as his daughter.
According to Jana, Maradona first embraced her mother and asked for forgiveness, then apologized to her as well.
“Forgiveness may sound small, but that’s what gave me a relationship with my dad,” she said. Shortly after publicly acknowledging her, Maradona tattooed Jana’s name.
She described their six years together as “intense as hell,” saying they felt like “100 maradonian years.” “Our moments of greatest connection were dancing, singing, and laughing,” she said. “What an incredible man my dad was.”
Inheritance, justice and a new trial
Jana said her half-brother, Diego Fernando, born in 2013 from Maradona’s relationship with Verónica Ojeda, played a key role in sensitizing her father toward recognizing his children later in life.
In 2016, Maradona also publicly recognized Diego Junior, his eldest son from a relationship with Italian woman Cristiana Sinagra. Jana said she has maintained a close bond with him, describing his family as “the one I love and choose.”
After Maradona’s death on Nov. 25, 2020, prosecutors opened a call for potential heirs, a move Jana supports. “For reasons of identity, I always support doubt,” she said.
Three days after his death, a prosecutor told her her father had “been killed.” On Mar. 11, 2025, a trial began against seven healthcare professionals accused of negligence during Maradona’s final days in home care.
“They lacked humanity,” Jana said, adding it “breaks my heart” that her father, who “loved and defended them,” was betrayed “for money.”
The trial was annulled on May 29 after it was revealed that the presiding judge, Julieta Makintach, was involved in a documentary about the case. A new trial is expected in Mar. 2026.
“Despite human failures, I believe in the justice system,” Jana said. “The law gave me an identity, a place in the world.” EFE
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