LONDON: The shirt the late Diego Maradona wore when the footballing great scored the ‘goal of the century’, as too his ‘Hand of God’ goal, for Argentina against England at the 1986 World Cup has sold for a record £7.1 million.
It is the highest price ever paid for a piece of sports memorabilia. Former England midfielder Steve Hodge put it up for auction 36 years after he swapped it with Maradona following the famous quarter final in Mexico.
After Maradona died in November 2020, Hodge said the shirt was not for sale. That December, Hodge said he had “people knocking on my door non-stop” and that reports he was looking to sell the shirt were false.
“I find it disrespectful,” he added at the time. “It’s not for sale. I am not trying to sell it.”
Auction house Sotheby sold the shirt for more than its estimated price, which was between £4m and £6m.
“This is arguably the most coveted football shirt to ever come to auction, and so it is fitting that it now holds the auction record for any object of its kind,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectables, was quoted by media reports as having said.
The previous highest price paid for a shirt worn during a sports match was held by New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth’s baseball jersey, which sold for £4.4m in 2019.
