Six jerseys worn by soccer superstar Lionel Messi throughout Argentina’s winning run at last year’s World Cup offered Thursday for $7.8 million, the public sale home Sotheby’s introduced.
The ultimate worth for the shirts, every worn in the course of the first half of one among Argentina’s video games on the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, is the very best worth for an merchandise of sports activities memorabilia this 12 months, Sotheby’s stated.
Argentina defeated France in a penalty shootout after a 3-3 draw within the World Cup ultimate, profitable its third World Cup.
The victory, by which Messi scored two of Argentina’s three targets, represented a crowning second for one of many sport’s greatest-ever gamers.
“These historic shirts are not only a tangible reminder of one of the most important moments in the history of sports, but are principally connected to the pinnacle moment in the career of the most decorated football player in history,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of recent collectibles, stated in a press release.
The shirts have been on show at Sotheby’s New York headquarters in the course of the two-week on-line public sale that ended Thursday.
No data on the profitable bidder was launched.
Sotheby’s stated a portion of the public sale proceeds could be donated to the UNICAS Undertaking, led by Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Youngsters’s Hospital with the help of the Leo Messi Basis, to assist kids affected by uncommon ailments.
The 36-year-old Messi, who currently plays for Inter Miami within the MLS, spent 17 years at Barcelona. He has received the Ballon d’Or, which is introduced yearly to the sport’s prime participant, a document eight occasions.
Sotheby’s had hoped that the Messi shirts would possibly set an public sale document for game-worn sports activities memorabilia, however that didn’t happen.
The document for a game-worn merchandise of sports activities memorabilia stays Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals jersey, which offered for $10.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York final 12 months.
