2018 World Cup Winner's Medal Sells for Huge Money Alongside Ronaldo's Boots & Maradona's Shirt at Auction

We may be in the midst of a global health pandemic but that has not stopped the weird and wonderful world of sports memorabilia auctions from being...well, weird and wonderful.

Julien's Auctions is famous for its record breaking sales of pop culture items - with one of Marilyn Monroe's dresses going for a staggering $4,800,000 in 2016 - but they also delve into sporting relics once per year.

Punters were treated to some tantalising football memorabilia during 2020's auction which was held virtually - for obvious reasons.

The headline act was without doubt a 2018 World Cup winner's medal awarded to an unnamed member of the France squad, which went for $71,875 (approx £59,000).

Despite our best detective work, we've not managed to figure out which player in Didier Deschamps 23-man squad the medal used to belong to but we have a few suspects...

Perhaps Adil Rami needed to cash to fund an extravagant romantic gesture to get ex-girlfriend Pamela Anderson back, or maybe Florian Thauvin sold it out of guilt as he only featured for one minute during the entire tournament.

Presumably it wasn't Paul Pogba or Samuel Umititi's or it might've come with a more visible bite mark...

This was not the only World Cup winners medal flogged, with silverware from 1994 and 2002 both going under the hammer, as well as one from Euro 2000.

Medals are boring though. What else did were revellers treated to we hear you scream?

How about a 1981 Boca Juniors shirt worn by none other than Diego bloody Maradona? The jersey is one of the waviest of all time but unless you had $16,000 (£13,000) going spare you had no chance of getting your hands on it.

Other highlights included a pair of Ronaldo's Nike boots which according to the auctioneer smelled like "sandalwood and sangria." We won't ask how that's possible...

The auction is quite comforting in many ways. Despite the financial uncertainty that likely awaits us all, the super rich still have enough cash going spare to drop ten of thousands of pounds on tat to fill up their very big houses.