the ball is not fake but some of the bids have been a bit strange!
http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040715/2/5135.html
Beckham's ball heads back down to earth
Thu 15 Jul, 4:13 PM
MADRID (Reuters) - A 10 million-euro (6.7 million pound) bid for the ball that David Beckham blasted into the stands during England's Euro 2004 shootout defeat against Portugal has been ruled a fake.
After running checks on the bids, the Spanish site of Internet auctioneers eBay (
www.es.ebay.com) decided to reduced the top offer for the ball from 10 million to a mere 23,650 euros (15,800 pounds).
The ball was put up for sale by the Spanish football fan who grabbed it while he was watching the Euro 2004 quarter-final from Row Q of the Luz stadium in Lisbon.
A bidding war believed to involve genuine collectors and British newspapers, anxious to get hold of the ultimate memento of a penalty miss that helped cost England a place in the semi-finals, was also joined by pranksters who hiked the price to astronomical levels.
The interest in the ball has created a major headache for the eBay, who have had to introduce a new series of security checks in order to establish the authenticity of the bids.
"Nothing like this has ever occurred in Spain before," company spokesperson Inma Solis said on Wednesday.
"We are having to check out each bid with our departments in other countries and are trying to cancel out those we believe to be false."
Pablo Carral, the 25-year-old Deportivo Coruna fan who caught Beckham's spot kick, said he only realised the interest the ball might generate after he had been contacted by a British newspaper who were anxious to get their hands on the trophy.
"I decided to put the ball up for auction after a British paper tried to buy it," he said.
"I was also rung up by several Irish daily papers saying they wanted to get hold of it in order to poke fun at Beckham and the English -- it's complete madness."
The ball, embossed with the names of the teams, the date and match venue, will be up for sale until July 22.
