The unexpected end of the two Ballons d’Or that Maradona received

Until 1995, the magazine France Football, in charge of organizing the Ballon d’Or gala, had the rule of awarding only European footballers.

This is why Maradona, despite being considered a great player, had not won the award. An example: in the season in which he became world champion in Mexico 1986, the award went to the Ukrainian Igor Belanov.

Years later, in 1986, Maradona received a Ballon d’Or: the one that rewards the best player in the World Cup. But three years later, the award disappeared from the Banco della Provincia de Napoles, where it was kept. A group of thieves also took a large number of valuable objects, including several luxury watches.

Maradona, then 29 years old, made contacts and contacted one of the leaders of the Neapolitan mafia, Salvatore Lo Russo, to help him recover what he had lost in the robbery. However, they only recovered the watches, since the Ballon d’Or had been melted down.

However, in 1995, France Football He gave him an honorary Ballon d’Or, in recognition of his best years, in which he was not awarded by the rule.

In July 2014, the house where her father, Don Diego, lived in Villa Devoto suffered a fire, with a focus on the ground floor. “There was nothing left”, declared then the environment of the Ten. Site where Maradona’s second Ballon d’Or was also lost.

In October 2020 the chance arose to have it replaced. When his environment informed him of the request for an interview by the French publication, Maradona made the only requirement to recover his Ballon d’Or. However, France Football he had never commissioned a replica of his Ballon d’Or. The award costs around 3,000 euros to make, is bathed in gold, perches on a pyrite pedestal, and six goldsmiths from a French workshop work on it. However, the media agreed.

Maradona passed away on November 25. And the extra Ballon d’Or never traveled from France to Argentina.