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Pele's 1958 World Cup final shirt sells for $4.9m
Pele's shirt from the 1958 World Cup final has sold for $4.9m at Sotheby's in New York, making it the most valuable piece of Pele memorabilia ever sold. The jersey, which received 10 bids, is the second most valuable football shirt ever auctioned, behind Diego Maradona's 1986 'Hand of God' shirt.
A shirt worn by Brazilian football legend Pele during the 1958 World Cup final has sold for $4.9m (£3.6m) at a Sotheby's auction in New York. The jersey, in which Pele scored twice against Sweden as a 17-year-old, is the most valuable item of Pele memorabilia ever sold at auction, according to the auction house.
Coverage comparison
Al Jazeera reported the sale on Thursday, noting that the shirt received 10 bids from more than five bidders. The outlet contextualised the price by comparing it to other record-breaking sports memorabilia, including a baseball jersey worn by Babe Ruth that sold for $24.1m in 2024, and jerseys worn by Michael Jordan and Diego Maradona that fetched $10.1m and $9.2m respectively.
BBC World also covered the sale, reporting the same final price and bidding details. It highlighted that the shirt is Pele's most valuable item of memorabilia ever sold at auction, and noted that the same shirt had previously sold for $105,600 in 2004. BBC also stated that the shirt is the second most valuable football jersey ever sold, behind Maradona's 1986 World Cup quarterfinal shirt.
Key Claims
The shirt sold for $4.9m at Sotheby's in New York, having received 10 bids from more than five bidders, as reported by both Al Jazeera and BBC.
Pele was 17 years old when he scored twice in Brazil's 5-2 victory over Sweden in the 1958 World Cup final, securing Brazil's first World Cup title. He remains the youngest player to score in a World Cup final, according to both outlets.
The shirt is the most expensive piece of Pele memorabilia ever sold, a claim carried by both Al Jazeera and BBC, with the latter attributing this to Sotheby's.
The shirt previously sold at auction in 2004 for $105,600 (£70,505), as stated by both sources.
Al Jazeera reported that the most expensive piece of sporting memorabilia ever sold is a baseball jersey worn by Babe Ruth in the 1932 World Series, which fetched $24.1m in 2024.
BBC reported that Die
How each outlet told it
Al Jazeera
Framing: Pele's shirt sells for record price, but not the most expensive — Informative
Facts Included:
Pele's shirt from the 1958 World Cup final sold for $4.9m
The shirt received 10 bids from more than five bidders
Pele scored twice against Sweden as a 17-year-old in the 1958 World Cup final
The most expensive piece of sporting memorabilia ever sold was a baseball jersey worn by Babe Ruth
Michael Jordan's 1998 NBA Finals jersey sold for $10.1m
Diego Maradona's 1986 World Cup quarterfinal jersey sold for $9.2m
Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimPele's shirt from the 1958 World Cup final sold for $4.9m. This is the second most valuable football jersey sold.
ConfidenceHigh
StatusMulti-source quoted from BBC — Worldthe outlets behind this status were not recorded for this claim
ClaimThe shirt received 10 bids from more than five bidders.
ConfidenceHigh
StatusMulti-source quoted from BBC — Worldthe outlets behind this status were not recorded for this claim
ClaimPele scored twice against Sweden as a 17-year-old in the 1958 World Cup final.
ConfidenceHigh
StatusMulti-source quoted from BBC — Worldthe outlets behind this status were not recorded for this claim
ClaimThe shirt is Pele's most valuable item of memorabilia ever sold at auction.