This Wednesday, French justice banned the auction of the Ballon d’Or won by former Argentine footballer Diego Armando Maradona and ordered his arrest pending an investigation into the disappearance of the award.
The French auctioneer announced the item was up for auction on Thursday but eventually backed down on Sunday, announcing an undated postponement as the Versailles Court of Appeal decided this Wednesday to confiscate the Ballon d’Or.
Maradona’s heirs claimed the item, missing for nearly three decades, was stolen from a safe in Naples in 1989 while El Pibe was playing for the local club.
The Ballon d’Or was owned by a collector who bought it at auction in Paris for €1.20, and at a delayed auction the auctioneer now estimates the value to be up to €10 million.
The Golden Ball for the 1986 World Cup player of the year appeared in a photograph with Maradona in France Football magazine, and in 2016 it was used by a collector to verify the authenticity of an item whose disappearance remains unexplained.
Argentine Diego Maradona, considered one of the best footballers of all time, died in November 2020 and his family had already allowed the three years allowed under French law to expire for the return of an object thought to be lost, in this case the Ballon d’Or.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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