The millionaire auction of the shirt that Maradona wore against England begins: the three t-shirts that triggered the world controversy

It is a millionaire dance that brings together condiments that rarely did an auction accumulate. The controversy surrounding the sale of the shirt that Diego Armando Maradona wore against England at the 1986 World Cup exploded in Argentina and replicated in the United Kingdom, where British footballer Steve Hodge intends to get between 5 and 8 million dollars for that outfit which he exchanged with Diez during the quarterfinal match that ended with the victory of the Argentine team.

The simple question that arose as soon as the news of the auction became a central axis in the whole plot: is casaca the one in the first half or that of the second, when Pelusa scored two of the most remembered goals in the history of the world championships?

There were not too many doubts about the subject and even for more than three decades the debate was not opened. But it was Dalma Maradona, one of Diego's daughters, who posed a check: “You change the one from the first half because you don't know what's going to happen in the second, I imagine. This poor man doesn't have it anyway. He doesn't have it. Surely. I know who has it. I know perfectly well that he doesn't have it. I don't think that's it. What's more, it's not. I also don't want to say who has it because it's crazy.”

From there, different theories were put forward. While Hodge remained silent, the auction house said it applied a detailed photographic comparison system to make sure that the shirt to be sold is the one for the second half.

Between April 20 and May 4, the big question of whether there are finally bidders who pay out the millionaire sum that the auction house wants will begin to be solved, something that would make the shirt a world record. However, the questions will not be closed. The versions that circulate revolve around at least three shirts: the one put up for sale by the former English footballer and two that would be held by the Maradona family.

The most popular outfit belonged to Hodge, who claims to have changed the shirt with Maradona after the match. The Sothebys auction house published a series of images in high quality and also the images they collated to argue that the sacred mantle they have in their possession matches the one used by Diego in the second half.

The company in charge of regulating the bid for the sale stated that it found matches in the “front patch”, the “alignment of the blue stripes with the custom shield”, “the special numbers on the back” and the “details on the sleeves” between that of the add-on and the one to be auctioned. However, he only shared photos showing the similarities he found in small details of the shield.

From the other side, the Maradona family in the voice of Dalma and Claudia Villafañe — ex-wife of the Argentine captain — insisted that the shirt to be auctioned is the one for the first half. “It's going to be the word of this former player against ours. What this man has is that of the first half, which if he wants to auction it is a sin,” said Villafañe at that time.

Although they preferred not to fuel the global controversy that started from this warning, different fans on social networks tried to go behind the tracks wanting to know who has the controversy shirt in their possession.

However, the viralization of a photo of Claudia wearing a substitute shirt for the Argentine national team during a 2009 match prompted Dalma to give a new statement. Many claimed that that shirt that Villafañe wore at that time had coincidences with the one that Maradona wore in the first half from a black detail of the shield.

“What do you know who has the shirt? What do you know if the shirt we talk about is the one in my mom's picture? I am very angry because nothing is even consulted, it is stated directly! And then we see,” Dalma wrote on her social networks, opening a new line of hypothesis. Does the family have more than one edition of the 1986 shirt?

The version installed until then was that only two models of shirts were made per footballer. But Dalma's phrase put on the table the possibility that more versions were made before the clash with England. There, Rubén Moschella's story took hold, the task of buying the t-shirts hand-embroidered by Mexican employees working in the Argentine rally hours before the match: “I bought the 40 shirts because the archers already had”. That squad had 19 field players so, if the real total was 40, there would be no more than two shirts beyond the duplicate that was per player.

A 2016 post on the official social networks of Maradona himself further fueled this line of argument: “They were made some tests. The first version had an Argentine rubber shield. Yes, it was rubber, attached to the shirt and with white numbers on the back. But we finally decided on a shield cooked just like that, with four stitches. And with silver football numbers on the back. It was crazy, but it was what I had...”. At that time, Diego also uploaded a photo of the front of those “tests” that they did before the one that finally remained.

That announcement of the auction, finally, opened up a range of versions, photographs and analyses of both locals and strangers on the subject. So far, Dalma and Claudia have not touched on the subject again. The one that added a new chapter was a viral video from 2001 when the Maradona family opened the doors of the private museum in an interview for the Versus program that was broadcast on Telefe that put another question on the board: Had Maradona recovered the shirt with which he scored the goals for England?

“This is a recovered one, my brother-in-law brought it from Canada, which is the one of the famous goal for the English,” Villafañe commented in that interview, although the brief fragment in which the shirt is shown makes it impossible to analyze the details of this shirt in detail. It can only be pointed out in the supposed difference between the numbers on this shirt that they showed before the cameras and the bright gray numbers worn by the 1986 shirt.

The detail is that in a 2015 interview with Intrusos Diego Armando Maradona fueled this conjecture, when he stated that the mythical shirt had been given to Benjamin, his grandson, Gianinna's son with Sergio Aguero. “I gave him that shirt. One day I showed Benja that Babu was going to give him one. And he said to me, 'I want that one, babu'. He's no fool to choose,” he said in that note after his daughter posted the photo of the boy showing the 10 of that coat.

It will be necessary to see if the whole round trip around the veracity of the shirt raises doubts among potential buyers who will have to shell out millions to keep the 10 that Hodge sells. Or, if in such a case, all the controversy only increased the expectation and the price immediately skyrockets. The question will remain in the air for now: who has the shirt with which Maradona signed The Goal of the Century and The Hand of God?

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