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Diego Maradona's Hand of God goal over red arrow
There are auction misses, and then there is expecting $10 million for one of the most famous objects in sports history and watching the bidding stop almost $7 million short. The ball Diego Maradona used for both the “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” against England at the 1986 World Cup just sold for $3.355 million, which somehow qualifies as both an enormous number and a disappointment.
Heritage Auctions had attached a guide value of $10 million and up to the Adidas Azteca ball before its Summer Platinum Night sale. The final price still made it one of the most expensive soccer collectibles ever sold, but it also offered a pretty useful reminder that even the memorabilia market has limits.
The Most Famous Ball In Soccer Missed By About $6.6 Million
It is difficult to imagine attaching more history to one ball.
Maradona used it during Argentina’s 2-1 quarterfinal victory over England in the World Cup on June 22, 1986, and the same ball was on the field for two goals separated by only four minutes. First came the “Hand of God,” when Maradona beat Peter Shilton with his left fist and somehow got away with it.
Then came the exact opposite kind of immortality.
Maradona collected the ball inside his own half, shredded the England defense and scored what FIFA voters later named the “Goal of the Century.” One ball was therefore involved in perhaps soccer’s most famous act of cheating and one of its greatest displays of individual skill within about four minutes.
The Heritage listing says referee Ali Bennaceur kept the ball after the match and held it in Tunisia for more than three decades. Multiple authentication services later photo-matched it to the game and specifically to both Maradona goals.
That is about as much provenance as a collector could ask for.
Apparently it is not $10 million worth of provenance.
The Ball Has Been Testing The Market For Years
This was not the first time somebody tried to turn the ball into a giant pile of money.
In 2022, it changed hands for £2 million, roughly $2.37 million at the time. The Los Angeles Times covered the sale after former referee Bennaceur put the ball on the market.
Then the ball resurfaced.
Heritage opened bidding at $2.5 million this month and ultimately sold it for $3.355 million. That is still a healthy increase from 2022, just nowhere near the moonshot expectation attached to it before the auction.
The comparison sitting right next to it makes the miss even stranger.
Maradona’s jersey from the same Argentina-England match sold for $9.28 million in 2022. Heritage clearly believed the ball could live in that same neighborhood.
Instead, the shirt remains worth almost three times as much (and the broader memorabilia ceiling sits even higher; Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot” jersey sold for $24.12 million in 2024, with the MLB asserting it set the public-auction record for a sports collectible.
$3.355 million is not exactly a failure, but it is a very funny version of success when somebody spent weeks telling the world an object might be worth $10 million.