Sotheby have sold Diego Maradona’s jersey that he wore in the 1986 FIFA World Cup Quarter final match against England for a record-breaking $9.28 million, the equivalent of ₦5.4 trillion.
Maradona scored both his famous “Hand of God” goal and FIFA vetted ‘goal of the century’ in the shirt.
The, shirt sold at an auction in London, surpassed both Babe Ruth’s 1928-1930 New York Yankees jersey and the original hand-drawn Olympic manifesto which sold for $5.6 million and $8.8 million respectively.
The Diego Maradona @Argentina shirt which he wore in the 1986 @FIFAWorldCup quarter-final against England has sold for £7,142,500 at the end of a two-week online auction at @Sothebys, it officially becomes the most expensive match-worn sports jersey in history. pic.twitter.com/MTGVFlgmhZ
— Asif Burhan (@AsifBurhan) May 4, 2022
After the game at the Estadio Azteca, Mexico City the Argentine captain swapped shirts with Steve Hodge, the Three Lions midfielder.
Per Tom Hamilton (ESPN) He (Hodge) had previously turned down potential bids for the shirt, and it had been on display in the National Football Museum since 2002. But on April 6, Sotheby’s announced the shirt was up for auction.
He wrote further that The listing was not without controversy. When Sotheby’s announced the auction, Maradona’s daughter Dalma claimed it was not the correct jersey. She said the shirt Hodge had was in fact the jersey Maradona wore in the first half of that 1986 match, not the one he had on when he scored both goals.
But Sotheby’s turned to Resolution Photomatching to independently verify Hodge had the correct jersey from the second half, and it was the “Hand of God” shirt. The buyer will remain anonymous, and auctioneer Brahm Wachter told ESPN that “whoever buys it, [the jersey] probably never surfaces again.”
