Sale of Diego Maradona assets extended after big-ticket items go unsold in auction

BUENOS AIRES: An auction house tasked with selling some 90 items owned by the late football icon Diego Maradona announced on Monday it was extending the deadline to submit bids after the most expensive pieces were unsold.

Sunday's virtual auction failed to attract any big bidders with the largest single offer of $2,150 for a painting of the former World Cup winner by artist Lu Sedova.

But the Buenos Aires house the former Barcelona and Napoli star gave to his parents, put up for a minimum $900,000, was one of many items that did not find a buyer.


Two BMW cars, listed at a combined $390,000 and a seaside apartment in Mar del Plata ($65,000) also remained without a bid.

The three-hour auction brought in just $26,000 with more than $1.4 million in assets unbid on, according to AFP calculations.

Auction house Adrian Mercado Group decided to extend the bid time "due to the number of national and international bidders that did not manage to register by the deadline" on Saturday.

It said new bidders would have another 10 days to register a bid for the remaining items.

Sunday's auction attracted bidders from several Latin American countries, Italy, France, Britain, Russia and Dubai.

The second most expensive piece of memorabilia sold on Sunday was a photograph of Maradona with late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, purchased for $1,600 by a buyer in Dubai.

Other items sold were a Napoli team jacket, training pants and a box of Cuban cigars.

The sale had been ordered by Judge Luciana Tedesco to pay the debts and expenses accrued by the estate of Maradona, who died of cardiac arrest on November 25, 2020.