Diego Maradona's 'hand of God' ball will be auctioned

The ball that Argentine footballer Diego Maradona used to score the infamous "hand of God" goal in the the 1986 World Cup quarter-final against England has been put up for auction and is expected to sell for about $3 million (€3.07 million).

Graham Budd Auctions said on Thursday they expect the 36-year-old Adidas ball to fetch between $2.7 million (€2.76 million) and $3.3 million (€3.38 million) when it goes on sale in Britain on November 16.

The ball belongs to Tunisian ex-referee Ali Bin Nasser who was in charge of the game and missed surely the most famous handball in the history of football.

"This ball is part of international football history — it feels like the right time to be sharing it with the world," Bin Nasser said. "I hope the buyer is in a position to put it on display or share it with the public in some other way."

How the 'hand of God' helped Maradona

Argentina's game against England at the 1986 World Cup is probably the most famous of their games en route to winning the trophy that year, although it wasn't the decisive final. Maradona scored both goals in Argentina's 2-1 win.

For the first goal, Maradona jumped as if to head the ball but instead punched it past goalkeeper Peter Shilton. England's players protested to Bin Nasser, but the goal stood.

Maradona joked afterward that it was scored "a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God," and his name for the incident soon stuck.

The second goal was voted FIFA's "goal of the century" in a 2002 poll. Maradona dribbled the ball from deep in his own half past almost the entire England team, rounding goalkeeper Peter Shilton, and sliding the ball into an empty net.

Argentina won the game 2-1 and went on to lift the World Cup, and the tournament launched Maradona as one of the game's greatest players. He died in 2020 at the age of 60.

Boom for sports memorabilia

The shirt worn by Maradona in the same match was sold in May for $9.3 million (€9.5 million), at the time the highest price paid at auction for a piece of sports memorabilia.

However, that was beaten by a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card, which went for $12.6 million (€12.9 million) in New York in August.

Finally, a Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals fetched $10.1 million (€10.3 million) last month, double what auctioneers expected.

"2022 has been an amazing year in the sports memorabilia market with records broken on three occasions," auction house chairman Graham Budd said. "It's an exciting time in the market and we're wondering whether this famous football will break records as well."

dh/msh (AP, Reuters)