Missing Maradona Ballon d'Or to be Auctioned Off
Diego Armando Maradona's 1986 Ballon d'Or will be auctioned off on the outskirts of Paris next June 6th after being considered missing for decades, until a collector stumbled upon it by chance.
The Aguttes auction house in Neuilly sur Seine (western Paris) announced on Tuesday the sale of this cult object, which is estimated to fetch several million euros - although Aguttes did not disclose the price. Its current owner is a modest art gallery owner who stumbled upon it accidentally.
Maradona won this award - which until the mid-90s was only awarded to European players - for being the best player in the 1986 World Cup with Argentina. For that World Cup, won by the Albiceleste, and for the 1982 World Cup, France Football - the award's organizer - FIFA, and Adidas created this distinction that eventually disappeared.
In addition to the intrinsic value of this award, attention is drawn to the bizarre story behind it. Stored in a safe deposit box at a bank in Naples - where Maradona played - it was stolen in 1989 by a group of mobsters, according to 'France Football' (FF) magazine.
Since then, the trail of the Ballon d'Or was lost. Although several of those involved in the robbery claimed it had been melted down to make gold bars, this hypothesis lost strength when it was revealed that the award is not made of solid gold but brass.
Thus, 26 years of mystery passed, from 1989 until 2016, when modest collector Abdelhamid B., now in his later years, purchased it, not exactly knowing what it was, as detailed by 'FF'.
The collector bought a box containing other awards (some plastic, some fake marble) for a few hundred euros at the Drouot-Montmartre auction house, where unsold items from the Drouot Palace, one of Paris's main auction points, end up.
The Franco-Algerian, however, took several years to realize it was Maradona's Ballon d'Or, initially mistaking it for a handball award.
Finally, he connected the dots and confirmed it was the 'Pibe's' with two high-tech appraisals based on two small defects in the ball's design.
French law considers Abdelhamid B. the rightful owner of the Ballon d'Or, as he acquired it in good faith, unaware it had been stolen, and its rightful owner (Maradona's heirs) has not claimed it within three years of its sale.
Thus, the collector has the opportunity to pocket a fortune.
