Maradona's 'Hand of God' Ball Sells at Auction for £2.5m — Well Short of Its £7.3m Hype
The ball Diego Maradona used to score his infamous 'Hand of God' goal against England at the 1986 World Cup sold at auction in the United States on 23 August 2026 for £2.5m ($3.3m) — a fraction of the figure forecasters had floated in the weeks before the sale.
Pre-auction hype had been loud. In June, Reuters reported the auction house's own estimate that the ball could fetch about $9.2m. By early August, AFP was citing expectations of $10m. Heritage Auctions, the American house handling the sale, had set its opening bid at $2.5m, with a pre-auction estimate of £2.5m to £3m. In the end, the final price landed right at the bottom of that range — and well short of the headline numbers that had been circulating.
The Athletic noted that while the 2026 sale fell well short of its estimate, the ball still sold for more than it had previously commanded.
This particular Adidas Azteca ball has a story all of its own. The 'Hand of God' was the first of two goals Maradona scored in that 1986 quarter-final in Mexico City — a goal he punched into the net with his fist, unseen by the referee. Four minutes later, he scored again, this time dribbling past half the England team in a run widely regarded as the greatest individual goal in football history. Argentina won 2-1 and went on to lift the trophy.
The referee that day was Tunisian official Ali Bin Nasser. At full-time, he simply collected the match ball and took it home, keeping it for more than three decades. Bin Nasser sold it in 2022 for $2.37m (£1.74m) through Graham Budd Auctions, a UK-based specialist sports memorabilia house. The buyer then tried to flip it later that same year at a November auction, but it failed to reach its reserve price — the minimum the seller will accept before a sale can go through.
Authentication was thorough. In 2023, Bin Nasser signed a letter confirming this Adidas Azteca was the only ball used during the match, a claim backed up by independent verification. Mike Provenzale, a specialist auctioneer at Heritage Auctions, called the ball "a true one-of-one item" and "arguably the most significant soccer item that exists."
For context on the sports memorabilia market, the shirt Maradona wore during that same match sold for £7.1m at auction in 2022. The ball, despite its iconic status, has never quite matched that figure.
What makes the ball so resonant is the moment it represents. One punch of a fist, one missed call, and a quarter-final between two nations with recent geopolitical history tilted on its axis. The ball was there for all of it. Now it has a new owner — at a price that, while eye-watering to most, left the auction room short of what the hype had promised.
