Diego Maradona’s body has arrived at the presidential palace in Argentina to lie in state as the grieving country prepares to pay its last respects to the football legend.
The Argentina icon, who was the manager of Argentinian club side Gimnasia passed away aged 60 on Wednesday, November 25, after suffering a cardiac arrest in his home country.
An autopsy report leaked to Argentine media said he died in his sleep after suffering heart failure, only two weeks after leaving hospital following surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain.
Medics also detected dilated cardiomyopathy, a medical condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged and cannot pump enough blood to the rest of the body.
His nephew, Johnny Esposito was the last person to see him alive, according to the report, before doctors who had an appointment to see him went to his estate on Wednesday and found him unresponsive.
His last words before he died were: “I don’t feel well.”
Esposito said Maradona complained that he didn’t feel well after having breakfast on Wednesday before returning to bed in the Buenos Aires mansion.
As a crowd of weeping fans gathered outside the presidential palace on Thursday morning, Maradona’s coffin was lifted out of an ambulance and brought into the palace where it will lie in state for three-day national mourning declared by the Argentinian president Alberto Fernandez.
Some fans were also pictured outside the Buenos Aires stadium where Maradona began his career setting up a makeshift shrine to celebrate Argentina’s legendary number 10.