© Reuters Diego Maradona, the Argentina legend who was kicked out of the 1994 World Cup for failing a doping test, says he has not touched drugs for more than a decade.
Speaking in a video post from his home in Dubai, the 54-year-old told his fans that he's clean.
"My environment is my people. They are healthy. I stopped taking drugs almost 12 years ago because it does not let me wake up in the morning the way I do today," Maradona said. "And I chose this life for my children and for my grandchildren and for those to come."
Maradona was famously sent home from the '94 World Cup held in the U.S. after testing positive for the drug ephedrine. He had already played two first-round games for Argentina by then, and even scored a wonderful curling goal that capped a dizzying passing display from the Argentines.
But he was soon sent packing.
"Maradona must have taken a cocktail of drugs because the five identified substances are not found in one medicine," Michel d'Hooghe, a doctor and chairman of FIFA's medical committee, said at the time.
His drug problems, and more notably his addiction to cocaine, truly started in the 1980s during his time in La Liga with Barcelona. Between 1991 and 1992, during his time with Serie A club Napoli, he was suspended 15 months from all competitions for cocaine use.
He still faces legal problems in Italy, and he holds his ex-wife Claudia Villafane responsible for stealing millions of dollars from him.
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