It is one of the most famous goals in football history: Argentina’s superstar Maradona secured his team’s progress at the 1986 World Cup. Allegedly unnoticed by the referee, he helps out with his hand and creates an iconic moment. The referee at the time is now handing out the ball for an auction.
The football with which Argentina’s idol Diego Maradona scored his legendary “Hand of God” goal has been auctioned off for millions. The referee at the time, Tunisian Ali Bin Nasser, had offered the ball for sale. He hadn’t seen the handball in the 2-1 win over England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. The ball achieved a price of two million pounds (equivalent to around 2.3 million euros) at the London auction house Graham Budd Auctions.
Maradona, who died in 2020 at the age of 60, later stated that the ball went past goalkeeper Peter Shilton “a little bit with Maradona’s head and a little bit with the hand of God”. That goal and another by Maradona, later voted the best goal in World Cup history, secured Argentina’s progress. Maradona, who is only 1.65 meters tall, dribbled the ball from his own half in front of the opponent’s goal, had outplayed several Englishmen and then completed the 2-0.
The referee from Tunisia justified his mistake by saying that the players blocked his view of the first goal. “I looked to the linesman for confirmation that the goal was valid – he ran back to the halfway line indicating he was satisfied that the goal was valid,” Nasser said before the auction. He hopes the buyer will make the ball available to the public in an exhibition, the referee added.
The shirt Maradona wore in the game had already fetched £7.1million at auction earlier this year. Around four years before the World Cup quarter-finals in Mexico City, Great Britain and Argentina were in the undeclared war over the Falkland Islands, which the British won.
