Football is the world's game. The people's game. Even the "working man's ballet" if you believe Chelsea's Alan Hudson.
And that means a huge army of fans in every country on earth - even those that call it soccer.
Some have the money to turn their passion for the Beautiful Game into a collecting hobby - or habit even.
Football memorabilia of all sorts is valuable.
The most valuable is signed by or definitively linked to particular star players and especially to well-known matches or moments in their careers.
Medals, cups, and honours can all be worth money.
Shirts - especially signed, match-worn ones - are especially prized.
As our list shows, these are the most valuable of all football memorabilia.
Some footballers transcend the sport to become "stars" in the more general sense. So, personal items from the likes of David Beckham, Lionel Messi, or Cristiano Ronaldo not particularly linked to their sporting lives may have value.
This style of stardom is more a phenomenon of the modern game.
Football businesses know the value of their sport. There is a huge amount of (often cheap and low-quality) memorabilia produced to sell to fans. It's unlikely that much of this will become very valuable in future.
History and similar markets suggest that only exceptional items in this category will achieve much value.
That doesn't mean they're not a good focus to your collection. Fans of a particular club have endless scope to build collections from memorabilia.
Here is some football memorabilia that is worth money.
10 - George Best European Cup winner's medal - £156,000
George Best scored a trademark solo goal as Manchester United won the European Cup in 1968, cementing the Red Devils place in history, and securing the legacy of Matt Busby.
Best is arguably the first British footballer to become a major personality outside the game.
He was a star of the Swinging 60s, and looked every inch the pop star.
On the pitch he was mercurial and brilliant in a way that few have ever matched.
His winner's medal from 1969 realised £156,000 at auction in 2010.
If you're looking to collect a single player, there's none better than Best.
9 - Pele 1970 World Cup Final shirt - £157,750
The greatest player of the greatest footballing nation.
Brazil's world cup win of 1970 is usually somewhere near the top of greatest team lists.
It was a team full of talent - Jairzinho, Gérson, Tostão, Rivellino - but Pele's is the name that shines out.
He won three world cups, but this is the one that most people remember. In part because of the high-quality television coverage, and that signature yellow shirt.
The final shirt realised £157,750 at auction in 2002.
8 - Alan Ball World Cup Medal - £200,000
Ball was a youngster when he won the World Cup with England in 1966.
England's only world cup win, from 1966, remains the highest achievement of the country that is the cradle of the modern game.
It's still a touchstone for nostalgic fans, and its timing - at the height of a roaring hot summer, in an economic boom with the UK leading the world in many cultural fields - has helped add an even more golden glow to it.
Footballers of this generation sometimes sell their silverware to keep body and soul together. Something that's less likely with today's megastars.
Ball's medal is not the most valuable 66 medal, making £200,000 at auction in 2022.
7 - Nobby Stiles World Cup Medal - £200,000
In 2010 Nobby Stiles world cup medal was valued at £200,000 in a package sale alongside his European Cup winner's medal.
Both were bought by Manchester United, the club for whom he played, for a combined £250,000.
If Ball was an exciting youngster when he topped the world, Stiles was a more grizzled character. But his jog with the trophy at the end of the game is an iconic moment - check out the lyrics of Three Lions, the England football anthem, for confirmation.
World Cup winner medals will always be valuable, but it can't help that Stiles was a United player. As I write this they're not enjoying the best of times, but the club's name is surely still among the biggest in the world.
If you'd like to see the medals, get on a train to Old Trafford and book a tour.
6 - Jules Rimet trophy - £254,500
This is a fake.
Yes, really.
England won the World Cup in 1966, at the time when it was still the Jules Rimet trophy.
But only just. On show before the finals, in the custody of stamp dealers Stanley Gibbons, some enterprising London ne'erdowells made off with the silver-gilt statue.
The legend says it was discovered by Pickles the dog under a hedge in south London.
But, this replica was made by the Football Association at some stage. If you like a conspiracy, you can wonder if this is in fact the real thing.
In 1997 - nicely close to England doing very well at the Euro 96 tournament - it was sold for over £250,000. You can now see it at the Football Museum in Manchester.
5 - Lionel Messi's "contract" napkin - £300,000
There's no other item like this on this list. And that reflects the magic of Messi - there's no other player like him.
This is a scribbled promise that Barcelona will sign the young Lionel, hastily scrawled on a napkin to stop the promising but unproven youngster from shopping his talents around other clubs.
It's a moment in history. And very well evidenced - provenance is everything.
It's about to be sold, with a starting price of £300,000 that could very easily be beaten and push it even further up this list.
4 - FA Cup trophy - £760,000
There's more than 1 FA Cup?
Sadly yes!
This one was handed to the winners between 1886 and 1910.
What a history it tells - a winners' list from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle.
It's also a fine and substantial piece of silverware, though it would make a fraction of this price on that account.
We know that David Gold, sometime owner of West Ham United and Birmingham City, paid just about £0.5 million for it before selling it on for over £0.75 million in 2020.
The current owner is unknown.
3 - The Sheffield Rules - £881,250
There's not much glory associated with this piece of pure footballing history.
Most pub quiz fans will know the world's oldest football clubs are found in Sheffield.
It's a relatively short and simple document. The lack of complex, technical rules is one of the keys to the universal appeal of football - or "foot-ball" as they were calling it in South Yorkshire in 1859.
2 - Lionel Messi World Cup shirts 2022 - £6,100,000
Here's a great example of a player selling his own legacy in a new way.
These six shirts are first-half shirts from Argentina's victorious campaign in the Qatar World Cup finals of 2022.
It's not quite a full set, and seems to be missing the shirt Messi wore verses the UAE, Argentina's dark-blue change kit, rather than the one in which they lost against Saudi Arabia.
Some of the proceeds of the sale went to tragedy. And, though this is a staggering sum, it fell short of the top estimate, which would have made it a record breaker across football memorabilia and match-worn sports shirts.
1 - Maradona "Hand of God" shirt - £7,142,500
We can be pretty sure that Peter Shilton didn't bid for this one. The England keeper came charging off his line to pick up a ball that had bounced up off a defender's foot.
But Maradona was quicker - and less scrupulous. His brilliant run had taken the ball to the edge of the box and he'd continued his run expecting a return pass. Up he went. And up went his arm.
Cheekily crediting the goal to the "hand of God" helped put it in the history books.
Steve Hodge had accidentally played him in for the goal and had collected his shirt after the game. He sold the shirt, which might be more kindly remembered for Diego's other goal, surely one of the greatest of all time, in 2022.
Football memorabilia for you
It's unlikely that football will ever fall out of favour, either as a spectacle or a collectible.
Football memorabilia, if it is high-quality, authenticated, and tells a story, has the potential to be a great investment.
And a rewarding, enriching hobby.
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