The world’s most infamous football has a new owner.
The Adidas Azteca ball with which Diego Maradona scored his famous ‘Hand of God’ goal at the 1986 World Cup was sold at Heritage Auctions for £2.5m ($3.35m) on Saturday night.
The auction of such memorabilia hasn’t often been so smooth though, since its authenticity has often triggered much debate.
Maradona famously punched the ball past goalkeeper Peter Shilton in Argentina’s 2-1 quarter-final win over England. The Argentina captain famously told reporters after the game that it had been scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”.
The Dallas-based auction house described the photo-matched ball as potentially “the most famous ball in the history” of any sport and had hoped it might become the most expensive piece of football memorabilia ever sold.
But not all sporting disciplines have been so lucky. A cricket ball claimed to be the one hit for six sixes in an over by Sir Garfield Sobers in 1968 was withdrawn from a Bonhams auction in 2012 due to intense scrutiny and doubts regarding its authenticity raised by the bowler, Malcolm Nash.
The ball was sold at an auction for £26,400 in 2006, but doubts on how many balls were used during the over arose. Auctioneer Bonhams then removed the ball, the BBC reported.
The ‘Hand of God’ football also has a complicated auction history.
Tunisian Ali Bin Nasser, who refereed the match, collected the Azteca ball at full-time and kept it for more than three decades. In 2023, he signed a letter to confirm it was the only ball used during the match, which has also been confirmed by further independent authentication.
Bin Nasser sold the ball in 2022 for $2.37m (£1.74m). Its new owner again put it up for auction in 2023 and received a final bid of $2.04m through Goldin Auctions, but it didn’t sell because it failed to reach an unlisted reserve price (a minimum value set by the seller that bidding needs to reach for the sale to be authorised).
Its return to the market this time came at an opportune moment, given the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico increased interest in football collectibles among the Americans, where sports memorabilia commands its biggest values. Mike Provenzale, a specialist auctioneer at Heritage, said: “It’s a true one-of-one item. Arguably the most significant soccer item that exists.”
The shirt worn by Maradona during the same match had sold for £7.1m at auction in 2022.