Forty years on, Diego Maradona's fist is still worth millions. The Adidas Azteca ball used in Argentina's 1986 World Cup quarterfinal against England sold for $3.35 million at Heritage Auctions last Saturday — the highest price it's ever fetched, and a long way from its troubled auction history.
This wasn't its first time on the block. Referee Ali Bin Nasser — the man who didn't see the handball that day in Mexico City — held onto the ball for decades before selling it through Graham Budd Auctions in 2022 for $2.37 million. A year later, it went to Goldin Auctions and drew a final bid of $2.04 million, but the sale collapsed when that figure didn't clear the undisclosed reserve. Now it's cleared $3.35 million. The market for this particular piece of rubber and leather only moves one direction.
Two goals, one ball, forty years of argument
The context matters. This ball witnessed both the most infamous goal in World Cup history and the greatest. Six minutes into the second half at Estadio Azteca — in front of 114,000 people — Maradona punched the ball into the net past Peter Shilton with his left fist. Bin Nasser and his linesman saw nothing. The goal stood.
Four minutes later, Maradona picked up the ball in his own half and ran 70 meters, beat six England players, and scored what FIFA fans later voted the "Goal of the Century" ahead of the 2002 World Cup. Two goals. One match. The full range of what Maradona was — cheat and genius, often in the same breath.
Peter Shilton has never forgiven him. "He cheated," Shilton told The Guardian in 2020. "The whole England team suffered because he cheated. He didn't show any remorse." That last part aged a little awkwardly — Maradona admitted the handball on Argentine television in 2005 and confirmed it in his autobiography, writing that "it was the hand of Diego." Shilton's response was that the apology came far too late. Hard to argue with that.
What the price actually tells you
The ball had a pre-sale estimate of $10 million, so $3.35 million is well short of that ceiling. But the bidding opened at $2.5 million and cleared it. For a piece of football memorabilia — not a shirt, not a boot, a match ball — that's a significant market signal about where Maradona's legacy sits, even six years after his death in 2020.
Argentina went on to win the 1986 World Cup. That quarterfinal win over England, built on those two second-half goals, was the turning point. The ball that carried all of it just changed hands for the third time in three years, each sale more expensive than the last.
Maradona called it the Hand of God. Shilton called it cheating. The auction market has its own verdict: $3,350,000.
