February 5 – With Barcelona’s house, the Camp Nou, going via a significant renovation, components of the stadium, and extra particularly locker room objects, are being auctioned off.
All 28 particular person participant lockers are falling underneath the hammer, together with the 2 penalty spots from the ultimate match earlier than the renovation started, that are encased in lucite. Nonetheless, for actual aficionados and memorabilia collectors, the holy grail is Argentine and Barca GOAT, Lionel Messi’s locker.
With the public sale on account of finish on February 12, the bidding for the locker and bench has reached an eye-watering mark of $366,000. To offer that quantity some context, the locker that was utilized by Gerard Pique, Pep Guardiola and Diego Maradona is presently valued at $158,600.
“FC Barcelona has hundreds of thousands of followers around the globe and these things symbolize the historical past, expertise, and spirit of the membership – they’ve been a part of the journey to greatness for therefore many legends of the game,” stated Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin when the public sale was first introduced in January. “We’re honoured to convey these one-of-a-kind items to Barça followers, for the very first time.”
The thought of promoting stadium memorabilia is just not a brand new one as Barca’s long-time rivals, Actual Madrid, auctioned off objects from the Santiago Bernabeu when renovations occurred within the Spanish capital.
Whereas locker gross sales don’t often transfer the needle, over in Saudi Arabia, they’ll be a certain quantity of enamel gnashing as Cristiano Ronaldo’s locker fetched a paltry £19,200 ($23,973) when underneath public sale final November.
The report for a locker sale resides in the USA the place former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, who tragically handed away in 2020, had his locker public sale fetch $2.9 million in 2023.
Contact the author of this story, Nick Webster, at moc.l1738733448labto1738733448ofdlr1738733448owedi1738733448sni@o1738733448fni1738733448