The police have already saved the mother of the Reds footballer.

Diaz’s parents were kidnapped by bikers in Colombia

Luis Diaz was born in the city of Barrancas, a city of several tens of thousands of people. The Liverpool winger comes from a simple family. He has three brothers; when he was a child there wasn’t even a television at home. Luis’s success in top-level football lifted the family out of poverty, but his parents, Luis Manuel and Silentis, found themselves in danger in their hometown. Armed motorcyclists surrounded their car, pulled it out and kidnapped them for ransom.

Diaz’s father is an ordinary children’s football coach, who is developing a small school in his hometown. Barrancas is one-story, there is nowhere to hide there, so the military and police, having experience in the war against cartels, immediately saved the footballer’s mother. But my father was taken away along the paths on a motorbike. An issue of national importance. Crime is rampant in Colombia, but the families of the national team players are left alone and understand the consequences. Let’s hope the elder Diaz returns home quickly.

Close relatives of stars from Argentina and Brazil were often kidnapped

Almost all football players in Argentina and Brazil know the bandits personally. Messi’s brother also has friends in crime. Observation is important to understand its essence. There have been dozens of kidnappings that people don’t know about. The football players did not contact the police, but turned to familiar bandits. Hulk, Graphite and several others paid the ransom. Others found bandits they knew to deliver money and close the matter.

In 2002, Riquelme’s brother was kidnapped. Christian spent 24 hours hostage, the football player paid 60,000 dollars, although the kidnappers demanded three hundred thousand. The dubious “ease” of obtaining large sums of money has pushed people to commit similar crimes. But the police in Brazil and Argentina are not doing so well. The Milito brothers ransomed their father from the kidnappers and Tevez freed his father 8 hours later.

Apart from South America, it is dangerous in Africa. Mikel and Yobo’s relatives were kidnapped. However, the number of African kidnappers is lower; police often release players’ relatives without ransom. Brazilian bandits, unfortunately, are smarter. For example, the sister of Ricardo Oliveira, a former AC Milan striker, was held for 160 days. But Milner was lucky: he escaped from the bandits with Jagielka.

Players and coaches have been taken hostage in the past.

The former coach of Cruz Azul, the Argentine Ruben Omar Romano, was kidnapped in 2005 in the Mexican capital. Strange story, Ruben disappeared for 65 days. Romano released the Mexican equivalent FBI. The Argentine returned to work a few days later. And in the last century, great football stars were kidnapped. Di Stefano remained hostage in Venezuela for 72 hours.

The two-time Ballon d’Or winner flew abroad for Real Madrid’s friendlies. Santiago Bernabeu, president of Los Blancos, was involved in the construction. The old man was friends with a Basque man who escaped execution under Franco’s fascist regime, survived a concentration camp and became a millionaire in Venezuela. Santiago brought Real Madrid to entertain his friend.

And Di Stefano thought his colleagues were having fun when, in the middle of the night, the hotel manager woke him up telling him the police had arrived. The strangers said that Alfredo was being questioned in a drug case. They were local communist fanatics who dreamed of making the front pages. Di Stefano had his eyes blindfolded. Alfredo got scared and panicked.

The Argentine knew that another lover of similar crimes, Fidel Castro, had kidnapped celebrities in Cuba. Di Stefano was unfortunate that the legendary St. Petersburg composer Stravinsky, who was supposed to be kidnapped first, turned out to be a flabby old man. The communists were afraid that the grandfather would die, so they changed the plan and arrested Di Stefano.

Alfredo was silent, Di Stefano took the lead in communicating. He played checkers, chess and dominoes with the terrorists. Alfredo sent a telegram to his parents and wife Sarah communicating that he was well. But when the player was blindfolded again, the Argentine thought he would be shot, because he saw everyone. But no, he was left next to the Spanish consulate.

The story doesn’t end here. Di Stefano saw the kidnappers in the press room and then among the police guards at the airport. The terrorists did not lie, they have their people everywhere. Di Stefano didn’t give it away. Scared and toxic by nature, Alfredo realized he was dealing with fanatics. The striker was happy when the Real Madrid plane took off.

Due to the terrorists, Barcelona lost the championship

In addition to the Real Madrid star, a Barcelona star was also kidnapped. The best sniper in La Liga, Quini, was captured in 1981 by representatives of the battalion that opposed separatism in Catalonia. The terrorists demanded $1.2 million in a Swiss bank account and Barcelona’s refusal to fight for the title. The Blaugrana were forced to play without Kini, the league leaders scored one point in six rounds.

The authorities transferred the money to the thieves. One of the terrorists turned out to be stupid and ran to collect the funds. He was captured and discovered that Kini was detained on the outskirts of Zaragoza. Police raided a hangar with a hostage in a tiny basement and killed one of the kidnappers. According to legend, the striker cried when he learned that Barcelona were playing terribly without him and had lost their chances of winning the title.

During his 25 days of captivity, Kini suffered a lot. They beat, insulted, barely fed and played the songs of Julio Iglesias, a Real Madrid fan. The bandits who kidnapped Kini did not explain the purpose of the kidnapping. They mocked the striker, calling him a traitor and separatist for moving to Barcelona. But Keeney later did not want to testify against the kidnappers and refused monetary compensation.

The attacker was attributed to Stockholm syndrome. A condition in which the hostage begins to sympathize with the captors due to severe stress. The term appeared after Jan-Erik Olsson took over a bank in Stockholm. The forced bandit got the better of the hostages: they were on his side. The Spanish terrorists were not so pleasant, but Keaney wanted to forget the nightmare and play football.

Thanks to the striker’s brace, Barcelona wins the Copa del Rey final. But because of the kidnapping, Kini never became the champion of Spain, although he received the Picini Trophy five times for the best sniper of the season in La Liga. Barcelona had their appeals rejected and were not allowed to replay matches in which the team’s and country’s best striker could not take the field.

Not all kidnapping stories have a happy ending.

Georgian defender Kaladze lost his younger brother. Eighteen-year-old student Levan was kidnapped in Tbilisi in 2001. Although the family was ready to pay the ransom, crime bosses killed the poor guy because he seemed to remember the face of one of the kidnappers. This story becomes even scarier because Levan’s body was not found until many years later.

Kaladze admits that the authorities feared a wave of criticism. Kakha scolded the police, so they found a mass grave near the house of crime bosses Aprasidze, but buried Levan’s body in an unmarked grave. Only after a while did one of the investigators become conscious enough to conduct a DNA test in the laboratory FBIKaladze buried his brother’s remains.

The kidnapping participants captured in Russia, Switzerland and France were each sentenced to 25 years, and the fourth was released after five years because he denounced his accomplices. In 2009, Kaladze gave birth to her first son, who was named Levan. Kakha is now mayor of Tbilisi, and his colleague in politics is Romario; in 1994, the attacker freed his father through blackmail from the kidnappers.

The crazy striker threatened not to play world Cup, and this helped bring my father back unharmed. But Honduran Wilson Palacios, a former Tottenham player, was unlucky. Bandits kidnapped his younger brother Edwin in 2007, received a £125,000 ransom, but killed the 14-year-old. The body was found two years later. Relatives of footballers are often in danger.