The eldest daughter of the late Argentine star, Diego Maradona, said that the shirt that the Sotheby’s auction house will offer is not the “Hand of God” shirt with which her father scored the two famous goals once morest England in the 1986 World Cup, according to what the magazine reported.Forbes“.
And Sotheby’s had announced, on Wednesday, that it would offer the blue jersey, which bears the number 10, in which Maradona scored two goals, for sale at an auction starting at $ 5.2 million.
The house said that all these years, the shirt had been owned by English midfielder Steve Hodge, who exchanged shirts with Maradona following England’s 1-2 loss in the quarter-finals.
However, Dilma Maradona, the eldest daughter of the Argentine star, told an Argentine radio station, according to “Forbes”, that her father “worn the shirt offered for sale only during the first half and changed the shirt in the second half due to the high temperature in the Azteca Stadium.”
Maradona scored two goals in the second half of the match.
“Maradona wore a different shirt in the first half, but it was checked before the shirt was put up for sale,” the auction company confirmed to Forbes magazine in an email.
The auction house said to the magazine that an independent company oversaw the task of verifying that the shirt matched the photo taken of Maradona in the second half.
The house clarified that the authenticity of the shirt has not been questioned during the 20 years in which it was displayed at the National Football Museum in Manchester, England.
And that match became engraved in football heritage because of Maradona’s two goals: one infamous and the other the pinnacle of splendor at the famous “Azteca” stadium in Mexico City.
The first came in the 51st minute, when Hodge specifically intercepted a ball on the outskirts of the England penalty area, and tried to return it to his goalkeeper, Peter Shelton.
England players protested to the referee of the match, Tunisian Ali Bennacer, but he did not care regarding them and scored the goal.
Then Maradona raised the controversy following that, saying that the goal was scored “a little bit by Maradona’s head and a little by God’s hand.”
Four minutes following the “illegal” goal, Maradona struck once more, scoring a goal considered by many to be the best in the history of the World Cup.
The Argentine star received the ball in the middle of the field and dribbled more than once, leaving five English defenders panting behind him before he bypassed goalkeeper Shelton and shot into the goal, a goal that was chosen as the “goal of the century” in a poll conducted by the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA).
