The daughter is “very hurt” by the decision of the French justice system, which authorized the auction of her father’s 1986 Ballon d’Or. Diego was not able to enjoy the prize during his lifetime because it was taken from him in 1989.
Giannina, born in 1989 from the union between Diego Maradona and Claudia Villafañe, spoke with EFE of the decision of the French courts to auction the Ballon d’Or won by his father in 1986: “We have learned of the sentence and we are very saddened for the memory of our father. We have appealed the sentence and we are very confident that the decision will be annulled, because it has been proven that my father was robbed of the Ballon d’Or and that the theft was public knowledge.” To bring it back is es.besoccer.com.
Maradona’s heirs, including Giannina and her sister Dalma, had asked the court to block the Ballon d’Or auction scheduled for June 6 at the Aguttes house, an event to be held in Neuilly sur Seine (outside Paris) .
The object, which had been lost for decades, was purchased for the paltry sum of 1.20 euros by a small collector at a second-level Paris auction in 2016.
“As a matter of justice and for the memory of our father, it is up to us heirs to reclaim what belongs to us. It was violently stolen without him being able to enjoy it,” added Giannina, who gave Maradona a grandson from her relationship with the Kun Agüero.
If it is finally auctioned, Maradona’s trophy could exceed 10 million euros and become the most expensive sporting object in history.
The plaintiffs, represented in France by the lawyer Gilles Moreu, claim that the trophy was stolen from their father in 1989 in a raid by the Italian mafia on the Banco della Provincia di Napoli and that there was no good faith on the part of the current owner, a small French-Algerian collector named Abdelhamid B.
However, on Thursday the French courts accepted the defense of Abdelhamid B. and Aguttes, who found that there was good faith on the part of the buyer, as he did not know he was buying a Ballon d’Or.
Furthermore, both parties argued that the minimum period of 3 years has passed without anyone from the Maradona family having claimed the item, therefore, according to French law, Abdelhamid B. is the rightful owner.
In parallel with the heirs’ proceedings, the French Central Office for Trafficking in Cultural Property is investigating whether the collector committed the crime of “concealment of a stolen object”.
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