Sect holdings will be exchanged
Panini-Aus Account for Home-EM 2024
06/04/2022 09:37 AM
Panini – a word that makes football fans of all ages rejoice. The legendary label set’s albums have cult status. Gluing, bartering and trading has been going on for more than 40 years. But that’s over for the EM 2024 Championships in Germany, the Italian company has to give up the rights.
Collectors must be strong now: Panini’s legendary album is about to come to an end. Ironically, there will be no more Panini posters for Euro 2024 in Germany. For the first time in 46 years, the manufacturer from Italy will not release a championship album.
In place of the previous provider, the American company “Topps” secured the rights from the European Football Association (UEFA). He has been a publisher of scrapbooks in the Bundesliga since 2008. The New York group also secured the rights to the European Championship and the 2025 Women’s Championship.
Topps was able to win over Jose Moreno as the campaign face for the EM 2024 scrapbook. According to the company, the star coach must “select himself the players who will be represented in the groups”.
Simply worship.
The Panini scrapbook has a high profile. Even Franz Beckenbauer and Diego Maradona were happy to be shown in the schoolyard by those who had them, and traded more by those who definitely wanted the stars. The first album was released in Italy in 1961, at that time there were players from the Italian league. Then it was also sold in Germany for the 1978 World Cup. In the 2006 World Cup, 800 million photos were sold.
The photos are witnesses to weird shirts and even funnier hair trends over the decades. From Bulgarian mullet Tryvon Ivanov at the 1994 World Cup to the shaggy light blonde Bastian Schweinsteiger at the 2006 World Cup, it’s all there. Some stickers are traded for a lot of money. A poster from Maradona, for example, can cost more than 20 euros on Ebay. An international edition containing 271 decals from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico – and signed by Brazilian legend Pele – fetched 12,038 euros at auction.
Although this business is old, it is still profitable. Because that’s probably the most complicated thing. And expensive at the same time: Lars Schmitz, a mathematician at the University of Cologne, calculated for the 2018 World Cup that you would have to spend 870 euros to get all 682 stickers in the album out of bags. Only then, based on probability, do you have all the photos together on average. And a lot of duplicate stickers. Sales figures are rising regularly, especially in countries hosting major events. Online exchange and direct sales increase the chance of getting the complete album. That probably won’t change with the Topps album.