Ciao Panini? – RFJ your regional radio

It’s a special day for football and sticker fans. The traditional Panini album from the World Cup in Qatar will be released this Friday in Switzerland. The beginning of the race for portraits of Mbappé, Messi, Ronaldo or even Shaqiri and Xhaka for many toddlers. No less than 670 stickers are to be collected this year. And these may be the last since we learned last April that for the next major football competition, Euro 2024, Panini was sidelined. Ousted by its big competitor, the American Topps, who recovered the rights thanks to a new contract with UEFA. A clap of thunder in the microcosm of the thumbnail. Indeed since 1970 and the World Cup in Mexico, an album of a major international tournament, it was a panini, that’s all!

70% of football-related revenue in 2016

And we loved this charming story that began in Modena in the 1950s by two newspaper merchant brothers who began to slip a photo of a player into a newspaper, inspired by the success of the images present in chocolate bars. In short, the beginning of marketing. But today, it’s Topps, and its new muse José Mourinho, who are giving lessons in Merchandising. Will Panini survive it? The Italian group claimed in 2016 that 70% of its revenue was linked to football. He still holds a contract for the World Cup with Fifa but the competition is undoubtedly on the lookout. Provided that the pleasure of a kid who discovers the thumbnails after tearing off his freshly purchased package, does not disappear. /jpi