Oldest rule book up for auction

Qatar ... the 2022 World Cup hosts hope to have the rare documents as the centrepiece of their tournament. Source: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

The book that launched the world's biggest sport 153 years ago could fetch more than $5 million ($4.74m) on the auction block, the highest price ever paid for sports memorabilia.

The New York Post, citing experts, reported that among likely buyers of the oldest known rule book governing football are a group of oil sheiks in Qatar - eyeing the treasure as a centerpiece for the FIFA World Cup games in 2022.

The oil-rich emirate is pulling out the stops, hosting the huge event in hopes of scoring points in the changing landscape of the Middle East, where soccer is often more powerful than politics.

Sotheby's is auctioning the rare rules book along with two handwritten drafts of the evolving rules and minutes upon which soccer was based.

Bidding kicks off at $2 million ($1.87m) but is expected to climb quickly to break the $4.4 million ($A4.17m) sports memorabilia record for basketball's oldest rules book (1891), which sold in the US in December for a display at the University of Kansas.

Sotheby's manuscripts expert Richard Austin said the rare soccer documents were composed in elegant Victorian-era penmanship by rich young sons of England's upper classes, who had a "lot of leisure time on their hands."

The auction is in London on July 14.

 

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