Diego Maradona - Reuters

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)

Diego Maradona is being treated for alcoholism and excessive eating and smoking.

A day after Maradona was taken by ambulance to the Guemes Sanatorium, clinic director Hector Pezzella said yesterday that the former football star was under sedation to avoid problems associated with withdrawal from alcohol.

He said Maradona's life was not in danger, and that he remained in stable condition and was improving.

"Alcoholism in Mr. Maradona or in any other patient is not something to be taken lightly. One has to treat it," Pezzella said.

Football great

Maradona led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title and the final in 1990. In 2001, FIFA declared him one of the greatest players in soccer history, alongside Pele.

But off the field, he has battled cocaine addiction and obesity. In 2005, Maradona underwent gastric bypass surgery in Colombia, sharply reducing his weight.

Maradona's physician, Alfredo Cahe, said the soccer great - despite his own protests - was taken to the clinic late Wednesday for health problems brought on by overeating, drinking and "the quantity of cigars he smoked."

He added Maradona woke early yesterday in his 13th-floor hospital bed and cursed him.

"He didn't want to be there," Cahe told Argentina's independent Radio Union. "After that, they sedated him again and he slept."

Cahe said Maradona's health problems did not involve cocaine or other dangerous drugs and his life was not in danger, but added Maradona had been in low spirits because of family and other problems.

"It was necessary to hospitalise him," Cahe said.

He said Maradona would remain hospitalised at least a week.

Maradona was hospitalised in Uruguay in 2000 and again in 2004 in Buenos Aires. He was counselled for drug abuse in Argentina in 2004, and in September of that year travelled to Cuba for treatment at Havana's Center for Mental Health.

Maradona, who also won Italian and Argentine league titles, failed a doping test in 1991 and was banned for 15 months. He failed another drug test at the 1994 World Cup in the United States. He retired in 1997.