Maradona will not charge for charity soccer match

LIMA, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Argentine soccer celebrity Diego Maradona will not charge for his participation in Bolivian flood benefit match slated for Monday, Bolivian government spokesman Alex Contreras said Sunday, denying opposition allegations of a government payout for the event.

According to news reaching here on Sunday, Maradona and Bolivia's president Evo Morales will play in the Hernando Siles Stadium, in Bolivia's administrative capital, La Paz.

The match played at 3,600 meters above sea level will also demonstrate the nation's disagreement with a ban by the sport's governing body on official international matches above 2,750 meters above sea level.

Maradona, who was one of Argentina's leading goal scorers in the1980s and 1990s, will arrive in Bolivia later on Sunday leading a team of Argentine journalists and former soccer stars including Alejandro Mancuso, Diego Latorre, Esteban Pogany and Mathias Almeyda.

The rival team will be the Bolivian World Cup team which played at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

The game will raise money to help with the effects of the La Nina floods, which left 73 dead and more than 95,000 homeless in Bolivia.

Contreras said that the government would continue its international campaign against the high-altitude soccer ban, announced by the International Association Football Federation (FIFA) in May 2007.