Diego Maradona is planning to sue Netflix over a film from an Oscar-winning director which is set to be released on the streaming platform this year.
Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla announced that the footballing icon is set to take on the streaming giant in the Italian courts.
Maradona, 59, says he did not give Netflix permission to use his image for their upcoming film “The Hand of God”, directed by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino.
Morla said in a statement he posted to Twitter: “Diego Maradona did not authorise the use of his image for this film.
“With our colleagues in Italy we are now drawing up the legal strategy to file a formal complaint with the justice system for the improper use of a registered brand.”
The project’s director, who won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2013 for “La Grande Bellezza” [The Great Beauty], was born and raised in Naples, where Maradona shone for seven years as a Napoli player.
Set in Sorrentino’s home city, the film is supposed to be a look at 1980s Naples – in which the acclaimed director drew up.
But with Maradona having galvanised the city and its football team, inspiring them to their only Serie A championships in 1987 and 1990 – the stories appear intrinsically linked.
Aside from all the things I’ve said before about Maradona, he involuntarily saved my life.
Paolo Sorrentino
Sorrentino’s relationship with the Argentine superstar appears to be a deep, complex one – having credited the twinkle-toed No10 for unknowingly saving his life.
He told Variety in 2015: “Aside from all the things I’ve said before about Maradona, he involuntarily saved my life.
“I lost my parents when I was 16 in an accident with the heating system in a house in the mountains where I always used to go to with them.
“That weekend, I didn’t go because I wanted to go watch Maradona and S.S.C Napoli play a match in Empoli, and that saved me.”
Maradona previously sued Japanese video game producers Konami for including him in their game PES 2017 without his permission.
Local media outlet Infobae report the two parties reached an agreement in May this year, with the company paying an unspecified sum to be used to build football pitches for children in Argentina.
The superstar ex-footballer also expressed his anger last year at the film Diego Maradona: Rebel, Cheat, Hero, God from British director Asif Kapadia, telling his fans to avoid watching it as he was annoyed to have been depicted as a “cheat”.
