Panini World Cup 2010 Album

[Kassim Bisaillon]

Havingoriginated in Italy by two brothers in 1961, the world of Panini has grown into a global love affair with collecting and trading stickers of World Cup teams and their players. Due to social media and reliance on digital content, Panini developed an app for Russia 2018, where fans have the chance to collect and swap virtual stickers in an online album. The application has averaged between 50,000 to 60,000 downloads a day, reaching more than 1.5 million users.

Panini America CEO Mark Warsop has been involved with collecting almost his entire life. While Warsop was growing up, his father worked for the main distributor of Panini U.K. and would bring stickers home for his son to collect. He remembers the Espaa 1982 World Cup as the one that piqued his interest and where he really understood what was going on as he followed his home country, England.

For us, the process for World Cup just never stops because we buy the rights from FIFA and that gives the right to use all the official symbology, the mascot, the stadium, obviously the FIFA logos and the name of tournament. But we then have to go out and have licensing arrangements with each individual national team that is participating in the tournament. process.

A few times each decade, the world gathers in a specific location to crown a soccer champion at the FIFA World Cup. For collectors, this high-profile tournament takes on added importance because of the Panini World Cup sticker cards and albums.

Consistently produced by Panini since the 1970 World Cup, these sticker cards give the global audience something tangible to collect, no matter how their team plays. The low price (and worldwide availability) makes the Panini World Cup stickers and albums some of the most popular sports cards in the world.

Panini World Cup stickers made their debut during World Cup 1970 in Mexico and the sets have gotten progressively larger over the years. The simple product features stadium, mascot, player, and team stickers that are intended to be applied to the corresponding album. There are also shiny foil or hologram cards that act as the closest thing to an insert found in the sets. The ultimate goal is to completely fill every blank spot in the album with the correct sticker, but it is no small task.

While newer World Cup sticker singles are relatively easy to find, the older stickers can be tougher to track down, especially since many ended up in partially-finished albums. Things are further complicated by releases like 1990 Panini World Cup Story, which provided a look back at the previous tournaments and added new stickers to the marketplace.

Panini also started releasing prelude products for the World Cup, like Panini Road to 2018 FIFA World Cup. The product covers the qualification process, so there are more teams and a completely different logo, which makes it easier to distinguish them from the main release.

The albums from each World Cup have a unique and colorful look and are popular collectibles themselves. They can be found with complete sticker sets, partial sets and completely empty. Because they are sold worldwide, there are multiple language versions based on the country where the album was originally sold.

Panini is not the only company to produce World Cup sticker sets, but they are the most popular. Although all the participating teams are covered in the World Cup sets, in recent editions, collectors may have noticed that the cards for England are not like the rest. All logos and emblems for the English players were airbrushed, producing a more generic look. This is because the licensing was held by Merlin's in 1998, 2002 and 2006, and then by Topps. However, that is no longer the case the for the World Cup 2018 edition, as Panini can use the official England logos.

My career has been entirely consumed by fast cars whizzing around race tracks, but thankfully I do realise that there is more than one Alonso in the sporting world. But whenever the World Cup comes around, an unexplainable sense of national pride takes over and I find myself wanting to fill the vacuum in my head where the previous four years of football knowledge would otherwise have been stored.

With Nigeria and Ivory Coast fast filling up, it dawned on me that the classic Panini sticker album is a classic social media tool. It is about a company using an international sporting event to tap into the wider public conscience and attract a long-lasting brand association.

Euro 2024 is upon us, but it might not be the fiercest football competition as far as stakes, drama and intensity go this summer. Away from the pitches of Germany, where 24 national teams will battle to become European champions, the clash between the tournament's sticker albums is raging.

UEFA's official sticker album, produced by Topps, has two-time Champions League-winning manager Jos Mourinho appearing in its marketing campaign. But it doesn't have some of Europe's best national teams in their official kits, is missing some of the world's biggest stars, includes some teams who didn't qualify for the tournament and features players who were never close to being selected. Panini, the previous rights holder, put out an album anyway. Its version features five of the tournament's top teams, with all of the star players in their official kits.

"Panini has put out their own booklet, but you're not going to collect two books, are you?" England fan Chris Abbott, who is collecting the official Topps stickers with his young son, says. Without investing their time and money on both albums, the pair will never be able to collect every player.

An era ended when Topps, which is owned by U.S.-based sports retailer Fanatics, announced that it was replacing Panini as the sticker rights holder for the 2024 and 2028 men's Euros, the 2025 women's Euros and UEFA Nations League finals through 2028. Panini, an Italian company, produced every Euros sticker album from 1977 through 2020, and still boasts the FIFA World Cup rights which it has held since 1970.

"Panini sticker albums were a massive part of the preparation before any tournament [because] before the age of the internet, you'd never seen these faces," Greg Lansdowne, the author of "Stuck on You: The Rise and Fall...and Rise of Panini Stickers" tells ESPN. "You'd never seen El Salvador or Honduras players anywhere. You just wouldn't. So when you saw them in the Panini sticker album these were new to you. And then when you saw them on the television for the game you said, 'Oh, I know him from the Panini sticker album.'"

Because of licensing agreements, four football superpowers -- defending champions Italy, Euro 2020 runners-up England, 2022 World Cup finalists France and Euro 2024 hosts Germany -- don't appear in their official kits in Topps. (The respective national football associations have all been contacted for comment by ESPN.)

England internationals such as AC Milan's Fikayo Tomori, Ajax's Jordan Henderson, Manchester City duo Jack Grealish and Rico Lewis, Manchester United's Mason Mount and Newcastle United's Callum Wilson appear in Topps' UEFA album, but weren't selected in the Three Lions' 26-man squad. If you're looking for official stickers of City Premier League winners Phil Foden or John Stones, or Arsenal's Bukayo Saka, then you're out of luck.

"Topps is proud of its first Euro 2024 sticker collection for the upcoming competition," Fanatics Collectibles said in a statement provided to ESPN regarding that issue. "While we are disappointed that a small number of players are missing, this is due to the tournament's former sticker partner having blocked certain parts of the collection to the detriment of the fans. Unlike the former sticker partner, we are committed to the fans and believe the offering of stickers and cards -- and range of current and former players -- will get everyone excited for the tournament."

"Panini has been synonymous with football for over 60 years, and we remain committed to producing the best possible product for our collectors [and] we look forward to doing this for generations to come," Panini said in a statement to ESPN. "We are extremely proud to hold the official rights to the England Senior teams and feel passionately about creating official product for collectors within the rights available to us."

"[France striker Kylian] Mbapp [and Germany goalkeeper Manuel] Neuer, they're not in the Topps album," Lansdowne says. "There are a lot of England players who -- if you know your England football, you'll look at them and think, 'How did they get in there?'"

Nothing against Leicester City's Luke Thomas, but the uncapped defender who spent the second half of the season on loan at second-tier Middlesbrough was never likely to receive a late call-up to Gareth Southgate's squad for this tournament. But the 23-year-old is present among the England players in the Topps album, while many of the key members of the squad in Germany are only available for Panini collectors.

In the late 1980s, a company called Merlin Publishing was founded by former Panini employees. Lansdowne says Merlin "made their name" producing sticker albums of wrestling stars after WWE and WCW shows began being broadcast in the U.K. "That," Lansdowne adds, "gave the Premier League the confidence to give them the [league] license to make an album for the second year of the Premier League, 1993-94. Then, within two years of that, they were sold to Topps."

Topps, which was purchased by Fanatics for around $500 million in January 2022, won the English Premier League rights for trading cards and stickers back from Panini last month, having previously been a Premier League partner from 1994 to 2019. That multiyear deal kicks into place starting with the 2025-26 season. Fanatics has also wrestled NBA/NBAPA and NFLPA card rights from Panini.

Fierce competition over licensing rights in recent years -- and the sums invested in them -- reinforces just how lucrative the collectibles market is at present. Football sticker albums' popularity had waned since their heyday but, according to Lansdowne, experienced a renaissance during the 2006 World Cup that hasn't abated. Finishing a sticker album ahead of a major tournament was a rite of passage that continues to be passed down the generations.

3a8082e126