This jersey, which the Argentinian footballer wore in the legendary match against England during the 1986 World Cup found a buyer for $ 9.3 million.
Le Monde with AFP
The hand of God, the goal of the century and the most expensive jersey in the world. The jersey wore the genius of Argentinian football Diego Maradona when he crucified England in a 1986 World Cup legend match was sold for nearly $ 9.3 million at Sotheby’s. Unheard of for a sports collector.
Shortly after the announcement of the end of the internet sales, which lasted two weeks and got rid of in the last minutes, we did not yet know the identity of the buyers (s) who put such a sum On the table to afford this relic of the “Pibe de Oro”, died November 25, 2020.
An Argentinian collector, Marcelo Ordas, told a TV channel from his country, the Nacion, which he had “unfortunately” failed with an offer at $ 6.8 million, facing “an offer from the means -Orient arrival at the last moment “.
And despite “a very big effort” and the help of “many business leaders”, like the Spanish defender of FC Barcelona Gerard Piqué and the president of the Argentine Football Federation, Claudio Tapia, who wanted ‘Help “repatriate this relic to share it with all Argentines”.
maradona stronger than Babe Ruth
At this price, the flocked blue jersey of the number 10 broke the historic record for any collector’s collector linked to sport, hitherto detained by the original manuscript of the Olympic Games of Baron Pierre de Coubertin (8.8 million dollars in 2019).
It also puts football for the highest time in this area, while the collector’s market is often led by American baseball and basketball.
The previous record for a sportswear was held by a jersey of the American Babe Ruth baseball legend ($ 5.6 million in 2019). Several basketball tunics have already exceeded one million dollars, which had never happened for auction at auction. 2> a jersey held by the English player Steve Hodge
For over 35 years, the Maradona jersey had had the sole owner of the former English midfielder Steve Hodge, who had lent him to the National Football Museum in Manchester (United Kingdom), before deciding to sell it. Well inspired, the player had exchanged his with the “Pibe de Oro” at the end of the quarter-final of June 22, 1986 at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City, won by the Argentines (2-1), future winners of the tournament, and remained One of the most controversial in football history.
This match, heavy with symbols four years after the Falklands War between England and Argentina, greatly contributed to writing the contrasting legend of Maradona.
At the 51 e minute, just after a balloon diverted in its surface by Steve Hodge, the Argentinian captain had risen in the air and had marked by helping the hand of obviously. Maradona had quipped after the match speaking of “the hand of God”.
Only four minutes later, “El Pibe de Oro” had scored an anthology goal, starting from his camp and eliminating four English players then goalkeeper Peter Shilton to score.
Doutes On the authenticity of the jersey
The sale had a polemical taste, part of the family of Diego Maradona saying, despite the repeated insurance of Sotheby’s, that the jersey was not the one worn by the Argentine captain when he scored the two goals. Maradona and Hodge told the episode of their exchange in books.
This kind of controversy is not a first. In 2018, a Parisian company had to withdraw in extremis a jersey presented as that carried by Zinedine Zidane during the final of the 1998 World Cup won by France against Brazil, due to doubts about its authenticity.
Last summer, an American house, Julien’s Auctions, announced in turn the sale, for more than $ 100,000, of a jersey prepared for Zizou for this match, without saying that he had been worn. A sale ultimately also canceled.