Diego Maradona filmed himself in bed with a 16-year-old who has accused the footballing legend of plying her with drugs, keeping her locked in a hotel and forcing her to get her breasts enlarged.
The intimate videos surfaced amid a human trafficking case against the late Maradona's associates which has cast a shadow over the legacy of the football icon, fondly regarded as "the golden boy" in his native Argentina.
The woman, Cuban Mavys Alvarez, claims Maradona and his associates groomed her as a teenager and flew her to Argentina without her parents' permission, where she was essentially held in a hotel for almost three months.
Ms Alvarez said she was just 16 years old when the footballer's entourage introduced her to the 40-year-old Argentine in 2000.
Maradona, widely regarded as one of the best footballers of all time, was in Cuba for a drug rehabilitation course at the time and allegedly met with the teenager at his hotel resort in the Cuban beach town of Varadero.
The footballer later moved her into an apartment in the capital Havana, she claimed, introducing her to a life of partying and drugs.
"It was the biggest mistake of my life," she told the Miami-based TV station Am?rica TeVe. "I was just a girl. I was pure. He was a stranger, he was rich and he paid attention to me. I could not say no."
Ms Alvarez said she was then taken to Buenos Aires in 2001, where she was essentially kept in a hotel for almost three months and "pressured" into having breast augmentation surgery.
The recent claims have led to a complaint being filed with the Prosecutor's Office for Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons in Argentina. Ms Alvarez joined as a plaintiff in the suit last week.
“I was not allowed to go out alone... always having people in charge of my stay there. During the entirety of my stay in [Argentina]," she said in a recent court filing.
She added that she was only allowed to do two activities during her stay in the country - shopping and going to the zoo - and was always accompanied by an escort.
The case is being overseen by federal judge Julian Ercolini, who will investigate whether Maradona's entourage engaged in human trafficking by transferring the young Cuban woman to Argentina without the consent of her parents.
Ms Alvarez has also called for the immigration officials who let her enter Argentina without her parents' consent to face investigation.
Her lawyer, Gaston Marano, said: "There was collusion between the foreign and local immigration authorities."
Ms Alvarez said her relationship with Maradona lasted for three years. In an interview with Am?rica TeVe, Ms Alvarez said she had kept silent about it for decades out of fear her family could face repercussions by the Cuban regime.
She also revealed that at one point the footballer introduced her to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who put his arms around her and asked Maradona how he had met such a beautiful girl.
Ms Alvarez said Castro gave her a special dispensation to leave the country, which Cubans were forbidden from doing at the time, to attend a commemorative match for Maradona in Argentina. A photograph of the Cuban dictator with Ms Alvarez and Maradona was released by the TV station.
"After all these years I feel ashamed of myself, knowing I was 16, and I was part of all this. But it was another experience in my life. We don't always choose what happens to us," she told Am?rica TeVe.
In the newly surfaced video, Maradona is seen with a camera in his hands while the teenage Ms Alvarez looks visibly uncomfortable. In one scene, the pair film themselves on a bed while a football match commentary can be heard in the background, according to the Spanish-language news outlet Infobae, which obtained the videos. Other videos show Maradona's associates in the room.
Maradona, who led Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986, died in 2020 of a heart attack after undergoing brain surgery
