The Ballon d’Or trophy received by Argentine Diogo Maradona as the best footballer of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, missing for several decades, will be auctioned on June 6 in Paris, auction house Aguttes announced this Tuesday.
“It was, above all, the tournament in which Diego Maradona really showed the world what he could do with his feet and even his hands”, praises the Gallic auctioneer, referring to the World Cup in Mexico and the famous ‘hand of God ‘, when Maradona deflected a ball with his hand into the back of the net, in the goal that dictated England’s elimination (2-1) from the competition, in the quarter-finals.
Aguttes estimates that the trophy will sell for “millions, due to its uniqueness”, not only in the tournament, with the 3-2 victory in the final over West Germany, but also due to the fact that the trophy received by the Argentine captain had disappeared shortly after being handed over to him.
There were many theories regarding its fate, from that it was lost in a poker game or sold to pay off debts, to the idea that it was melted down into pieces of gold.
The version that the auctioneer defends is that it was stored at the Banco della Província, in Naples, where it was stolen by local gangsters in 1989.
According to the auctioneer, the trophy reappeared in 2016 and was acquired in a lot from a private collection in Paris.
“It was thoroughly investigated and authenticated as Diego Maradona’s Ballon d’Or trophy”, guarantees Aguttes.
To be able to bid in the auction, interested parties must make a deposit of 150,000 euros.
Diego Armando Maradona, who scored five goals in Argentina’s second of three world titles, died in 2020, aged 60.
