Argentinian football legend Diego Maradona has acknowledged for the first time that he had deliberately used his hand to score a controversial goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.

The intervention, which Maradona infamously dubbed at the time as the "hand of God", was the first goal in a 2-1 win for Argentina over England at the knock-out quarter-final stage of the competition.

"I don't for a second regret scoring that goal with my hand," Maradona said on his own television chat show, called "Number 10 Night" in tribute to the days when he was lighting up football pitches in the number 10 shirt for Argentina.

Maradona said that the disparity in size between himself and England goalkeeper Peter Shilton meant he was never going to head the ball as it was played into the area.

The Argentinian maestro scored the goal by punching the ball into the net during a jump as Shilton leapt into the air towards the ball.

Maradona said that once the ball went into the back of the net, he looked at the touch judge and "saw that he was heading back to halfway" for the restart of the match.

"I said to my teammates to come and embrace me and celebrate the goal. They were a little hesistant. They came over to embrace me but it was as if they were saying: 'We've robbed them'," he said.

But Maradona, the Argentinian captain at the time, said he assured his teammates that "whoever robs a thief gets a 100-year pardon."

He was referring to British control of the Falkland Islands which lie just off Argentina and were scene of a bitter war in 1982 when the South Americans fought unsuccessfully to regain sovereignty of the islands they claimed as their own.