In a press conference on Monday, Nov. 22, a 37-year-old Cuban woman has accused late Argentine football idol Diego Maradona and his entourage of violence and abuse, including rape and holding her against her will.
Mavys Alvarez Rego told the media in Buenos Aires that she was just 16 when she met the then 40-year-old Maradona in Cuba, where he was undergoing drug treatment.
"I was dazzled, he won me over... But after two months everything started to change", she said, claiming that she was then forced into an abusive relationship with the legend.
She alleged that the affair lasted "between four and five years" during which Maradona plied her with cocaine and booze, in turn making her dependent.
She was also forced to get breast implants, Rego claimed.
"I loved him but I hated him too, I even thought about suicide," she said.
In the tearful interview, the mother of two said that during a trip to Buenos Aires with Maradona in 2001, his entourage had held her against her will for several weeks in a hotel room and banned her from going out alone.
While revealing several episodes of physical violence, Rego mentioned a particular occasion when Maradona had "raped" her at their home in Havana.
"My mother came to see me that day at the house where we were in Havana and Diego did not want to open the room door for her.”
"Maradona covered my mouth so I wouldn't scream, so I wouldn't say anything and he abused me," she told Infobae.
"He starts insulting me, grabs me, throws me against the bed, slaps me."
"My mum knocked and he didn't open it. He raped me. That's what happened."
"I stopped being a girl, all my innocence was stolen from me. It’s hard. You stop living the innocent things that a girl of that age has to experience."
"I don’t want to think about it too much," Rego said.
After so many years of silence, Rego finally decided to speak out in order to balance some of the stories that were being aired in the TV series about Maradona in the run-up to his first death anniversary on Nov.25.
"I would like to be able to help other women to overcome situations like these, assist them with my own experiences, I would like to help and be able to convey to them that, if they go through a situation of this type, the important thing is to ask for help outside of the circle in which they are."
Alvarez Rego has not filed a complaint herself but an Argentine NGO called "Foundation for Peace," registered one after hearing her confessions in the American media in recent weeks.
The complaint alleges human trafficking, deprivation of liberty, forced servitude, assault, and battery.
"I have done what I had to do, the rest I leave to the courts," she said.
"I achieved my goal: to say what happened to me, to prevent it from happening to others, or at least so that other girls feel the strength, the courage to speak up."
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