Jerseys are a symbol in the world of soccer, they not only represent a team they also represent players. That is why every fan's dream is to have a jersey worn by a player of his team. However, very few can fulfill that dream.
Getting jerseys of iconic players is almost impossible, very few people get for free jerseys worn by Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Cristiano Ronaldo, among others. Besides that, the jerseys of great players are often auctioned. And there are very few people who can afford those shirts.
For example, on May 2, 2022, it became known that a jersey worn by Messi at Barcelona was sold for half a million dollars. It was the shirt that the Argentine took off and showed it to the Real Madrid fans at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. That afternoon in Madrid, Barcelona won 3-2 at the end of the match thanks to a goal by Messi.
Until today, the most expensive soccer jersey in the world was a game-worn shirt of Pelé. In March 2002, an auction in London paid 225,000 dollars for the piece. But that value has been surpassed today and a new game-worn shirt became the most expensive in the world. But the game-worn shirt of which player was purchased for nearly 9 million dollars?
Who has worn the most expensive jersey in the world?
The jersey worn by Diego Maradona when he scored twice – including the “hand of God” goal – to knock England out of the 1986 World Cup has sold for a record-breaking £7.1m (8,9 million dollars) at auction.
The shirt had been owned for the past 35 years by Steve Hodge. Maradona and the England midfielder swapped shirts at the end of the game. "I thought, I won’t be here again. I’ll try and get a shirt," Hodge told FIFA in an interview, per Sport Bible. "After the interview, I went down, behind the goal, to the changing rooms. And as I went down, Maradona was walking with two of his teammates. I looked him in the eye, tugged on my shirt as if to say ’any chance of swapping?’, and he came straight across, motioned a prayer, and we exchanged shirts.”
The jersey had spent the last 20 years on loan at the National Football Museum in Manchester, and went under the hammer at Sotheby’s on Wednesday afternoon, fetching £7,142,500, (8,9 million dollars) a new auction record for an item of sports memorabilia. The buyer was not identified.
Sotheby’s described the blue No 10 jersey on its website as in “good overall condition consistent with heavy use, perspiration and athletic activity” with “slight de-threading on hemming on the front bottom of shirt, and minor spots throughout”.
The jersey worn by Maradona in the 1986 Mexico World Cup broke the record set by Babe Ruth's New York Yankees game-worn shirt, which sold for $5.64 million (£4.4m) at auction in 2019.
