Diego Maradona's girlfriend Victoria Ojeda has given birth to a boy called Diego Fernando and the Argentine soccer great is now expected to travel back to Buenos Aires to meet his son.

"He's a Diego, with a big head and lots of hair," Alfredo Cahe, Maradona's long-time doctor, told reporters outside the Buenos Aires clinic where Ojeda gave birth late on Wednesday.

"My feeling is that Diego's going to show up at any moment."

Maradona, 52, is working in Dubai and Ojeda's lawyer Jorge Auruccio said he did not know if he would be flying home to Argentina to meet Diego Fernando, who weighed 3.2 kilograms (seven pounds).

The pregnancy triggered angry exchanges on social media networks between Ojeda, 35, Maradona's ex-wife Claudia Villafane and his daughters Dalma and Giannina.

In the 1980s, during his days at Serie A club Napoli in Italy, Maradona fathered another son, called Diego Jr, who he said was born following a relationship that lasted a day.

Maradona, considered one of the most gifted soccer players in history, took up his current post as honorary sports ambassador in Dubai in September, less than two months after being sacked by the United Arab Emirates club Al Wasl.