The auction of the special Golden Ball awarded to Diego Armando Maradona after the World Cup won in 1986, scheduled for this week, it was postponed due to a judicial investigation involving the possibility of receiving stolen goods. Reporting it is SportMediasetwhich he mentions Aguttesthe French auction house in charge of the sale.
“This fractious climate and these uncertainties do not allow connoisseurs to approach this acquisition calmly – writes Aguttese – and our role as a trusted third party can no longer be adequately carried out”. The heirs of Pibe de Oro had initiated emergency judicial proceedings and challenged a French court’s ruling that the auction could take place.
A new date for the auction has not yet been set. Maradona’s heirs claim that the trophy was stolen and that consequently the current alleged owner has no right to resell it. Aguttes, on the other hand, claims that the trophy – missing for years – reappeared in 2016 among lots purchased in Paris from a private collection. Both the auction house and the current owner also claim they did not know or suspect it was stolen at the time of acquisition.
Maradona, consider the rules of the magazine France Football, which until 1994 reserved it for European players – the first non-European to win it was George Weah in 1995 – never won the “original” Ballon d’Or, but still received two. One, the one we are talking about in this article, in 1986 for being the best player of the World Cup; the other to his career, in 1995.