Argentina captain Lionel Messi’s set of shirts, i.e. six, worn wore during his side’s title-winning 2022 World Cup campaign — including one from their victory over France in an epic finale — was sold for a mammoth $7.8 million at auction, on Thursday, at Sotheby’s New York.

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Notably, the shirts that Messi wore in the first half of six of Argentina’s matches in Qatar were brought to auction courtesy of the tech startup AC Momento and have eventually gone to an anonymous bidder. Many were hoping for the lot to be sold for a record price and projected it to become the highest price paid for a game-worn jersey at auction,. However, it fell short of surpassing the elusive $10.1mn-mark, which was spent in September 2022 on all-time great basketballer Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals Game 1 jersey.

Messi’s set of shirts, however, successfully managed to edge past the $9.28m for Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” Argentina jersey, which was sold in May 2022. The late Argentinian wore the jersey during his side’s famous quarter-final win over England, by a 2-1 win margin, in the 1986 World Cup (also won by Argentina).

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It is to be noted that the eventual price is the highest for sports memorabilia at this year’s auction. In addition, it sets a record for Messi memorabilia. In the run-up to the auction, the previous record spent on a piece of Messi match-worn clothing was at the $450,000 (spent in May 2022) on a shirt he wore during his former club Barcelona’s El Clásico clash versus Real Madrid in 2017.

Talking about Messi’s run in Argentina’s 2022 FIFA WC campaign, he ended as the winner of the Golden Ball award for the best player with seven goals. Under him, Argentina won their third WC title, after a gap of 36 years, by beating Australia, Netherlands, Croatia and France in the Round of 16, quarters, semi-finals and final, respectively, in last year’s mega event in Qatar. 

On Thursday, Messi, along with Spain’s Aitana Bonmati was also nominated for FIFA best player awards. At 36, he continues to gain accolades and remains one of the biggest names in world football.

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