Diego Maradona’s Golden Ball trophy will be sold at auction, despite his heirs claiming the current owner has no right to sell it.
A French court ruled the auction go ahead, despite the opposition from his heirs, their lawyer said on Thursday.
The trophy was awarded to the late Maradona after he was named the best player of the 1986 World Cup.
But it went missing for decades and only recently resurfaced.
The footballer’s heirs tried to stop the auction of the trophy by starting an urgent judicial procedure.
Their lawyer Gilles Moreu said the court’s ruling “was not favourable to the heirs of Diego Maradona”.
The trophy is set to go under the hammer at the Aguttes auction house in Paris next Thursday – and is expected to sell for millions.
Image: Gilles Moreu, left, and Lola Chunet, lawyers for Maradona’s daughters. File pic: AP
Maradona’s heirs say the trophy was stolen and claimed the current owner is not entitled to sell it.
However, the auction house said the trophy reappeared in 2016, among other lots acquired from a private collection in Paris.
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Mr Moreu said the court believed the trophy’s current owner – identified as Mr Benchaieb – was “acting in good faith”.
Mr Benchaieb claimed that when he bought the trophy years ago he was not aware it had been stolen.
Maradona received the award in 1986 at a ceremony at the Lido Cabaret on Paris’ famous Champs-Elysees. It subsequently disappeared.
Some say it was lost during a poker game or sold to pay off debts.
Image: Maradona scores his infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal in 1986. Pic: El Grafico via AP
Others say Maradona stored it in a safe in a Naples bank that was robbed by local gangsters in 1989 when he played for the Italian side, Napoli. Maradona’s heirs believe it was stolen from the bank.
Mr Moreu said he and his clients were “both surprised and saddened” by the ruling.
“We intend to use all available means of recourse between now and 6 June,” he said.
Maradona, who died in 2020 at the age of 60, captained Argentina in their 3-2 win over West Germany in the 1986 World Cup final in Mexico City.
In a quarter-final win over England, he scored his infamous “Hand of God” goal and then “Goal of the Century”.
The “Hand of God” goal came when Maradona inconspicuously punched the ball into England’s net while tricking the referee into believing he had used his head.
Four minutes later, in a dazzling display of skill and poise, he weaved through England’s midfield and defence before taking the ball around England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and passing it into the net.
FIFA later declared it the greatest goal in World Cup history.
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It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.