Nicaragua award for Maradona

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona has been honoured by Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega with the highest award bestowed by the Central American country, where Maradona is visiting with girlfriend Rocio Oliva.

The official Nicaraguan government website El 19 reported on Wednesday that Ortega had awarded Maradona the insignia of the Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, praising the footballer as a “fighter, a gladiator of peace and justice” during a private ceremony in his office on Tuesday.

Photographs of the event showed Maradona, clad in a black shirt, embracing Ortega before kissing the medal in appreciation.

The presidential decree bestowing the award emphasised Maradona’s “sporting greatness and human qualities” as well as his friendships with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, the late leftist president of Venezuela.

Maradona, 55, revealed last Sunday on his Facebook page that he was vacationing in Nicaragua.