£3,600 bling confiscated by tax collectors

It’s not been a good September for Diego Maradona. Having starting the month with humbling defeats to Brazil and Paraguay in Argentina’s beleaguered World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign, he’s since been told by Viagra-hawking legend Pele he wasn’t actually that good at football after all and endured ridicule for being packed off to a fat farm in Italy.

The latest ignominy was suffered after Italian fraud squad police followed him to said fat farm last week and raided it, in an attempt to try and recover some of the £28m Diego owes in back taxes from his time at Napoli between 1984 and 1991.

Officers were told to recover anything ‘within plain sight’, which unfortunately for tubby manager meant the £3,600 diamond earrings he had on at the time. It’s not the first time he’s had the taxman knocking. In 2005 the state pocketed the appearance fee for a misguided stint on the Italian version of Strictly Come Dancing.

Anyone on the search for a nice Christmas present for nan, keep watching eBay - Italian authorities are lumping Diego’s old bling straight into auction.