Lionel Messi's World Cup shirts set to be sold for £8m at auction

Argentine beat France 4-2 to win on penalties

A number of Lionel Messi’s Argentina shirts, including his match-worn World Cup championship jersey, will be put up for bidding with a projected record-setting sale price of more than £8 million.

A complete set of six World Cup shirts from 2022—in which Argentina defeated France on penalties to win the trophy—are offered for auction at Sotheby’s in New York. A percentage of the revenues will be donated to charitable organisations.

The shirts, which are thought to be worth at least $10 million (£8 million), are from the first half of the championship match, the semi-final matchup with Croatia, the quarterfinal matchup with the Netherlands, the round-of-16 matchup with Australia, and two of the three group-stage matches. That would set a record for a collection of “sports memorabilia.”

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Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals Game 1 Chicago Bulls jersey, from the storied “Last Dance” period, set an all-time high for the highest-priced sports collectable when it auctioned for £8.1 million at Sotheby’s New York in September of the previous year.

Contrarily, Kurt Cobain’s guitar, which he played live on MTV Unplugged in 1993, the year of his death, is the most costly piece of musician memorabilia. In 2020, it sold for £4.2 million.

Sotheby’s head of modern souvenirs, Brahm Wachter, stated:

‘The 2022 FIFA World Cup stands as one of the greatest events in sports history, intrinsically connected to Messi’s valiant journey and firmly establishing his status as the greatest player of all time.

‘The sale of these six shirts stands as a monumental occasion in auction history, offering fans and collectors a connection to Messi’s crowning achievement. It is an honour for Sotheby’s to present and exhibit these invaluable collectables to the public, which encapsulate the sheer brilliance of a player who has redefined the boundaries of football excellence.’

Messi’s injury-time goal during the 2017 El Clásico held at the Bernabeu against Real Madrid and Barcelona set the present mark for one of his shirts at £360,000.

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