Pelé’s No 10 Brazil shirt from 1958 World Cup final expected to fetch £4.5m at auction

Pelé’s iconic blue No 10 shirt from the 1958 World Cup final is expected to become one of the most expensive football artefacts ever sold after being put up for auction. The Brazilian was 17 when he scored two goals in the 5-2 win over Sweden to secure the Seleção’s first World Cup and write his name into football lore. Now Sotheby’s expects the shirt’s rich history will lead to it fetching more than $6m (£4.5m) when it goes under the hammer in New York next month. The shirt worn by Pelé was auctioned by Christies in London in 2004 when it sold for £59,000. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images That figure would put it , as a single item, behind only the Argentina jersey worn by Diego Maradona when he scored the Hand of God goal against England at Mexico 1986, which sold for $9.3m in 2022. A collection of six Lionel Messi shirts from the Qatar World Cup went for $7.8m in 2023. “The shirt itself is in extraordinary condition for something that’s nearly 70 years old,” Brendan Hawkes, Sotheby’s vice president of sport strategy, told the Guardian. “It’s just a really vibrant blue colour with the Brazil yellow on the back. “One of the things that struck me when I actually first handled it was how small it was. Pelé wasn’t a very large man and he wore this shirt when he was 17. …