The auction of Diego Maradona’s Golden Ball trophy has been postponed, French auction house Aguttes said in a statement Sunday.
Maradona’s heirs launched a lawsuit last month to halt the auction, which was planned for this week, due to claims it was stolen from the legendary soccer player shortly after the trophy was presented following the 1986 World Cup.
A French court ruled the auction could go ahead despite the claims, a lawyer told the Associated Press on Thursday, however, after legal representatives for the heirs initiated an appeal, the auction house delayed the sale.
"Maradona has always aroused passions, and this continues despite the recent court ruling on Thursday, which we welcome and which dismissed the heirs' request for a ban on the sale," Maximilien Aguttes said in a statement.
"Our mission is to organize the auction in the best possible conditions, both for our seller and for the buyers. This litigious climate and these uncertainties do not allow connoisseurs to approach this acquisition calmly, and our role as a trusted third party can no longer be properly fulfilled."
The impetus for the heirs’ claim of the stolen status of the trophy stems from competing stories of the item’s provenance. The auction house claimed it was lost in a poker game or traded to clear Maradona's debts. But others believe it was stolen by gangsters in 1989, while the Argentina legend stored it in a Naples bank during his time playing in the Italian league.
“If the owner of an object can claim ownership under French law, it is on the obvious condition that his or her good faith cannot be called into question,” lawyers for Maradona's heirs said in a statement to the Associated Press last month. “This cannot be the case for the owner of a trophy that was famously stolen from Diego Maradona and whose heirs can legally claim ownership.”
The trophy first sold in 2016 after surfacing for the first time, trading hands privately for an undisclosed sum, according to Aguttes. The auction house predicted the trophy would sell for millions of dollars in a press release last month.
Other Maradona memorabilia has sold for eye-catching sums, such as his “Hand of God” jersey, which went for over $9 million at Sotheby’s in May 2022.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.