Jana Maradona: “I’ve been in a legal battle with my dad my whole life”.
Buenos Aires, Dec 27 (EFE) .
Jana Maradona, the daughter that Diego Armando Maradona publicly recognized in 2014, spoke with EFE about the relationship with her father, with whom she was “in court all her life”, from the paternity claims to the scandalous lawsuit against the doctors who treated the star before his death, whom she said “lacked humanity”.
Jana grew up without luxuries or want in Ingeniero Adolfo Sourdeaux, a humble neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. All her life she knew she was Maradona.
His mother, Valeria Sabalain, with whom Diego had a brief relationship while he was married to Claudia Villafañe, began the paternity suit shortly after his birth in 1996.
The court gave him the surname in 1999, some time after Maradona missed three summonses to undergo DNA tests.
The paternity suit was followed by lawsuits to update the child support payment for Jana’s maintenance, which she summarizes: “I’ve been in court with my dad my whole life.”
When asked about the star’s fame, she says, “I saw him on television but I didn’t know how important he was in the world,” and explains how her family and friends protected her: “They didn’t tell me ‘your dad is the greatest thing there is.’ Because, of course, if he were the greatest thing there is, he would know me.”
At age 14, after the sudden death of his uncle, he decided he wanted to see his father “at least once in his life, face to face.”
After several unsuccessful attempts to open a door to her world, in 2014 she introduced herself as ‘Maradona’s daughter’ at a gym where ‘El Diez’ trained.
The first thing the star did was hug his mother and ask for her forgiveness. Then he apologized to her. “Forgiveness might seem like a small thing, but it’s what gave me the bond with my dad,” Jana recounts, and she remembers with emotion that shortly after that meeting and after publicly acknowledging her as his daughter, Diego tattooed her name on his arm.
“Intense as hell,” he recalls about his father, with whom he shared six “Maradonian” years that, he says, “are equivalent to 100.”
“Our moments of greatest connection were dancing, singing, and laughing,” she reveals, and then adds: “What an incredible man my dad was.”
The Maradona legacy
When asked what made her father decide to recognize his children towards the end of his life, Jana answers that Diego Fernando, the son he had with Verónica Ojeda in 2013 – whom Jana calls “my baby” – was the one who “sensitized him”.
In 2016, Maradona publicly acknowledged his eldest son, Diego Junior, the result of an extramarital relationship with the Italian Cristiana Sinagra.
“I’ve had a lifelong connection with him. (Along with his wife and children) they are my family that I love and choose,” says Jana about Diego Junior, who sought her out when she was ten years old and “set an emotional precedent” for meeting her father.
Jana met Dalma and Gianinna Maradona, the daughters the footballer had with Villafañe, at her grandfather’s wake. “It wasn’t a good meeting,” she says.
Gianinna, however, was a great companion to her during her father’s last days in November 2020: “Afterwards we didn’t develop the bond much further, but I know that I can always talk to her.”
After the star’s death on November 25, 2020, the Prosecutor’s Office opened a call for those who believed they could be Maradona’s children, something that Jana supports: “Because of my identity, I always support doubts.”
“They lacked humanity”
Three days after Diego’s death, Jana received a call from a prosecutor who told her that her father “had been killed,” and on March 11, 2025, another trial began concerning her father, this time against the seven healthcare professionals who provided him with home care during his final days.
During the more than 40 hearings of the trial, which she religiously attended, it was revealed that the home in which she died did not have basic medical equipment and that the professionals in charge neglected fundamental aspects of her health.
“They lacked humanity,” says Jana, revealing that it “breaks her heart” that her father, who “loved and defended them,” was betrayed “for money.”
“The trial hurts, but for my dad I will stand firm and get up 100,000 times. They won’t break me, not even by kicking me,” he warns, adding that his biggest hope is “that there will be a sentence.”
The trial was annulled on May 29 after it was discovered that Judge Julieta Makintach was participating in a documentary about the process – in which she was the protagonist – while she was part of the court.
While awaiting the start of the new trial, initially scheduled for March 2026, Jana says that, “despite human failings”, she believes in the system: “The law gave me an identity, a place in the world.”
