You could attempt to interest your kids in the World Cup by introducing them to Panini stickers. Or you may consider it more affordable in the longer term to introduce them to crack cocaine instead. Because these football-themed collectables are not just habit-forming but positively addictive, which can be financially ruinous for those paying.
The Italian brand first launched here ahead of the World Cup in Argentina in 1978 when only Scotland of the Home Nations were among the 16 teams to qualify. Fast forward 48 years and the World Cup has trebled in size to 48 teams. So this year’s corresponding Panini collection is bigger, brighter – and more expensive – than ever before.
The 2026 edition requires collecting some 980 unique stickers, including 12 available only in a separate Coca-Cola promo. There are also premium cards – a gold-edged Kylian Mbappé, for example – which are rumoured to be issued in smaller numbers. The estimated cost for completing an album by simply buying random packets at £1.25 per seven stickers is £1,300 – or likely far more.
My first Panini World Cup was Spain ’82. That summer, apart from the sums that went on learning to smoke (and you could get ten Rothmans in those days for just 35p), I spent every penny of my pocket money on stickers. You would buy a colourful envelope, tear it open and see which were new and which you already had. Then you would take the latter to school to swap. You’d look at other offerings dealt out like a deck of cards – ‘got… got… need’ – and then strike deals, like nascent City traders. The most coveted ’82 sticker was Brazil’s Zico – until the team was knocked out by Italy, when it became Paolo Rossi instead. I recall having so many Alan Roughs I couldn’t give them away.
The UK office of the company is in my hometown, Tunbridge Wells, which, curiously, was also the birthplace of another football spin-off, Subbuteo. You’d hope that someone’s mum might have worked for Panini and brought home buckets of freebies, but we never got a sniff of anything like this. And, despite all my financial and emotional commitment, I still ended up with barely half of my album filled.
These days there are WhatsApp and Facebook groups for more efficient swapping – a bit like Tinder but for stickers of Jordan Henderson rather than no-strings sex. There are also sticker-swapping conventions. You can even, for a premium price, order a specific sticker from Panini direct. Though this is the collecting equivalent of Donald Trump asking Gianni Infantino to rescind a red card: bad form.
This year I have heard many of my friends talking excitedly about how obsessed their kids are with collecting them. And I wondered: how could children of the digital age be so seduced by something so defiantly old-fashioned as a paper sticker? Suddenly I realised: they’re not. They’re just being nice. Having detected Dad’s enthusiasm, they indulge him by pretending interest, before getting back to TikTok as soon as they can.
The modern Panini market, I’m certain, is not driven by children but nostalgic adults trying to engage with their tech-obsessed children via a medium they feel more at home with than YouTube.
But I suppose a Panini sticker album is less ghastly as a midlife-crisis medium than a Porsche, and still – slightly – cheaper.
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