For many fans of football, completing sticker books and collecting trading cards are formative experiences when falling in love with the sport. From playground trades during lunch breaks to scraping together enough pocket money and hurtling towards the nearest corner shop, up and down the country children indulge in this rite of passage. There also an abundance of adults who indulge, unable to kick the intoxicating nostalgia of their childhoods.
For me it was no different. As someone who, to put it politely, is far from being technically gifted at the sport, cards and stickers allowed me to connect with others at school about football. I could prove, through my extensive collections, that my limited skills were not a barrier for football discourse in the best way nine-year-olds can manage.
I have vivid memories of my dad carefully placing the stickers into my annual as I was deeply troubled that I would not be able to stick them in straight. When my interest from stickers shifted to cards, I remember pleading with a boy in the year above to trade me his rare Cesc Fàbregas Match Attax. After what felt like a king’s ransom of cards, the boy relented to my nagging and a trade was agreed. These were core memories that I look back on fondly to this day. However, these original memories were all centred around men’s football.
In 2011, football sticker manufacturers Panini launched their first collection for the Women’s World Cup that year. Much to the surprise of Panini themselves, the collection was a roaring success. Over 4.5 million packets of stickers were sold in a fortnight and that the company were forced to print a million extra packets to keep up with the increasing demand. Panini spokesperson Christine Fröhler said to The Guardian in 2011 that:
“The collection was indeed a gamble but the feedback we have got from the market shows that it paid off.”
Since then, Panini has produced a collection of stickers for each Women’s World Cup and released their first European Championship collection for the 2017 tournament. In 2022, the company ventured into domestic women’s football, releasing a Liga F collection. A Women’s Super League collection would follow the year after.
Predictably, the WSL collection exceeded expectations. Within a month of its release Panini announced stock shortages due to the high demand. In an interview with the BBC programme Newsround, a Panini spokesperson said,
“Stock is flying off the shelves quicker than we can replenish it.”
A collection for the following WSL season was seemingly guaranteed within that first month of roaring success. This season, Panini have ventured into creating WSL cards alongside the already establish sticker formula.
It has become common knowledge that women’s football fans love merchandise. At any WSL game up and down the country you will see a kaleidoscopic array of shirts, donning the names of any and every player in a club’s squad. Deloitte reported that for the 23/24 season, Arsenal saw
“a 64% increase in matchday and 48% rise in commercial revenue in the 2023/24 season.”
It seems startling that it took Panini this long to realise the potential gold mine they were sitting on.
Whether this is due to traditional neglect of women’s football or fear of taking a monetary risk, Panini have consequently left a significant amount of money on the table. Although they would be satisfied with the subsequent success, it feels as if the decision and effort should have been made sooner. For the upcoming 2025 Women’s Euros, Topps will release the sticker collection. Whether they can continue the progress made by Panini remains to be seen.
However, now the decision has been made, it will be the new generation of fans that will benefit the most. Instead of pleading for rare Fabregas cards like me, fans will be arguing with their mates over who gets to trade for the golden Alessia Russo and Lauren James cards or feeling the unbridled satisfaction of finding that one Leicester City sticker need to complete the book.
It is heartening that kids and adults alike will be able to experience the thrill of tearing open a packet of cards or stickers and see their WSL heroes concealed within. Maybe like me, they are unable to kick the childhood habit and will be collectors for life. Now women’s football can be at the forefront of this fixation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67005072
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67709793
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/jun/16/panini-womens-world-cup-stickers
