About three weeks ago I became infected as well … a virus very dangerous circulating around the globe as it seems … the virus causes the so-called „panini-syndrome“, highly connected with an event that is going to start within very few hours … El Mundial, die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft, the FIFA Soccer World Cup.
Today „High Noon“ is shifted by six hours to 6.00pm local time … Germany vs. Costa Rica … the opening match in Munich, Germany. Everyone is excited, millions of people will be standing in front of gigantic screens, sitting in pubs or at home following the broadcasting stations, or, whoever got lucky, going to the FIFA WM Stadium applauding to the first whisle of this tournament’s first referee Horacio Elizondo from Argentina.
But … the craze commenced long before. Hundreds of thousands have been collecting and exchanging these little stickers with the portraits of their football stars. Three weeks ago, when I bought my first 20 packs containing five of them each, the vendor told me I was lucky to still be able to get some. In some regions, especially in some remoter areas, she said, they were already sold out. She herself had sold about 3.000 packs within the first week of availability. Every morning the secretaries would drop by to keep the supplies coming in for their bosses. It wouldn’t matter, kids and adults, boys and girls, roadworkes, bus drivers, clerks, lawyers, doctors … everyone affected. A newspaper article tells that since the 25th of April only within Germany there have been distributed 100.000.000 packs. I saw some of my friends in university taking a study break to update their albums, I observed a middle-age man on my way to work sitting at the little table in the train to Munich sticking with utmost care and scrupulousness his newest pictures, a friend of mine even keeps accurate accountance of his existing and missing treasures in form of tables and charts.
All began in 1970 with the World Cup in Mexico, when Panini, originally founded in Modena, Italy, in 1961 by Giuseppe und Benito Panini, published its first World Cup Panini Album, back then with collectable portraits of Pelé and Beckenbauer. Since then the company has supplied generations of collectors with stickers, trading cards, and comics. Taken over by Marvel Entertainment in the 90s, Panini now also produces and distributes several other well-known sticker-series and comics such as Barbie, Disney, Spiderman, Superman, X-Men, and all sorts of Mangas. Thereby Panini lanced to one of the market leaders of comic and adolescent books, stickers, e.g. the World Cup Series, still being an important segment of its corporate business.
Regarding this years internationally similar Panini Album „FIFA World Cup Germany 2006“ stickers are distributed in 110 countries, 13 million packs are produced each day, 500 million are calculated to be sold worldwide till the end of the tournament. There are street markets and collectors events in Venezuela, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Spain, Peru, France, Germany, etc. There is online exchange and market places such as eBay, Stickermanager, Kindersache Tauschbörse, Tauschbilder … where young and old have only one thing in mind … to complete the missing blanks. Some might also miss one or the other player not being represented within the album and in contrast notice some faces not in the actual pool of players now. This is due to the late nominees of all the national teams. Even more interesting that the first time in Panini History one portrait, German keeper Jens Lehmann, is produced and handed in later as an extra sticker. Just leaves everyone with the difficult question of where to put it in the album …
But, one is for sure, he will be between the goalposts of today’s opening match of 2006’s FIFA World Cup. Let the games begin! I wish everyone four exciting weeks of soccer, celebrations, and … happy collectings!
More information and press:
– Press Coverage Panini
– Google News Deutschland
