The jersey that Argentine legend Diego Maradona wore when he crucified England at the 1986 World Cup went for nearly $9.3 million.

A record for a sports collector's item, announced the auction house Sotheby's.

The previous record for a garment was held by a jersey worn by American baseball legend Babe Ruth in the late 1920s, which sold in 2019 for $5.6 million.

Maradona's jersey even exceeds the manuscript of the 1892 Olympic manifesto, which sold for $8.8 million in December 2019.

Only one offer until Wednesday, and then...

The sale had been taking place on the internet since April 20.

Until Wednesday, only one offer had been registered, at around $5 million.

But the sale was animated in the very last minutes, until reaching the sum of 9.28 million dollars, costs included.

The identity of the buyer(s) was not immediately disclosed by Sotheby's.

In 1986, Maradona swapped his shirt at the end of the match with England midfielder Steve Hodge, who owned it for over 35 years and lent it to the Manchester Museum.

This quarter-final in Mexico, heavy with symbols, four years after the Falklands war, went down in history and helped write the contrasting legend of Maradona.

The Argentinian captain had scored with his hand - "the hand of God", the player had said - but the goal had been validated by the referee.

Only four minutes later, "El Pibe de Oro" had scored an anthology goal, voted "goal of the century" in a FIFA vote, starting from his camp and eliminating four English players then goalkeeper Peter Shilton to score.

Argentina then won the World Cup.

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