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The shirt worn by Diego Maradona when he scored the “Hand of God” goal has fetched over £7million at auction, the highest price ever paid for a piece of sports memorabilia.
Maradona scored two of the most memorable goals in World Cup history to knock England out at the quarter-final stage in the 1986 tournament in Mexico.
The late, great former Argentina captain rose above Peter Shilton to knock the first in with his fist at the Azteca Stadium, with the officials failing to spot the infringement.
Moments later, he beat a series of England players with a sublime dribble on the way to scoring a magnificent solo goal as Argentina won 2-1 and went on to be crowned world champions.
England midfielder Steve Hodge ended up with the shirt after swapping with Maradona – who passed away in November 2020 – following the match.
The shirt has been on loan to the National Football Museum in Manchester, but was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in London for a bidding period between April 20 to May 4, with estimators expecting it to collect around £4m.
However, the successful bid ended up being significantly higher, with Sotheby’s confirming on Wednesday that the shirt went for a whopping £7,142,500.
That eye-watering total makes it the most expensive piece of sporting attire in history, with a 1928-30 road jersey of baseball icon Babe Ruth setting the previous record in 2019, going for £4.4m ($5.6m).
