Power struggle as Maradona snubbed over Ruggeri

Argentina coach Diego Maradona was Thursday embroiled in a power struggle with federation chairman Julio Grondona, who has turned down his choice of Oscar Ruggeri as assistant coach.

“I don't want Ruggeri showing his face round here,” Argentine media reported Grondona as saying outside the federation headquarters amid reports that Maradona could resign if he cannot have his former teammate alongside him.

General manager Carlos Bilardo, who had Maradona and Ruggeri as pillars of his 1986 world champions and 1990 runners-up, insisted that the affair could be smoothed over and said he thought Maradona would stay put despite the apparent snub to his authority.

Bilardo said: “I don't think he'll resign. (But) the person who has the say-so is the chairman of the federation. Maradona is in charge of the technical side of things, Maradona must choose the technical staff.

“We're still talking to try to reach an agreement,” Bilardo told C5N television, adding he had been in touch with Maradona.

Maradona lifted the World Cup alongside close friend Ruggeri in 1986 but Grondona and the latter famously do not get on.

Media clustered around Maradona's house in the Buenos Aires suburb of Ezeiza as they tried to elicit some kind of reaction and media reports quoted him as saying that resignation was not on the agenda.

Maradona is due to arrive in Glasgow on Sunday ahead of a November 19 friendly with Scotland.

As Maradona fights to assert his authority with regard to Ruggeri he will be aided by Alejandro Mancuso and former Bilardo assistant Miguel Angel Lemme in Scotland. Bilardo confirmed as much and said that “afterwards, we'll see.”

Maradona's first match in charge following his surprise appointment should be an occasion of some nostalgia for him as it was at Hampden Park that he scored his first goal in national colours in a 1979 friendly which Argentina won 3-1.

Ruggeri said meanwhile he would like to help Maradona but that it was difficult to do so “from the outside.”

“I'll do anything at all to help Diego – I called Grondona to sort things out but he didn't pick up the receiver,” Ruggeri told La Red radio.

Others already on board to help out, with Grondona's blessing, are Sergio Batista and fellow 1986 veteran Jose Luis Brown – but Maradona is still holding out for his man as his own number two.