The Panini Sticker Phenomenon | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Panini stickers, launched by four Italian brothers in the 1960s, evolved from a local soccer card idea into a global phenomenon tied to every World Cup, with 670 stickers per album and over a billion packets sold worldwide in 2022. The appeal lies in the tactile ritual of opening packs, trading duplicates face-to-face, and completing albums as a shared, multi-generational experience that no digital version can replicate. Iconic collectors, players like Buffon, and factories running 21 hours a day illustrate how this analog hobby continues to unite fans across countries and decades.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The World Cup kicked off in Qatar, and the event's ultimate soundtrack is the refrain of fans sifting through packs of World Cup stickers: "Got, got, need." Before the 1970 World Cup, four brothers in Italy, the Paninis, began printing collectibles featuring images of players from every country in the competition. More than 50 years later, fans worldwide scour for that obscure Serbian goalkeeper or elusive Lionel Messi, hoping to complete their albums. The Panini sticker phenomenon has become a booming international business and a central part of the World Cup experience.
For millions of soccer fans, the World Cup unofficially began weeks ago when the Panini stickers for this quadrennial event shot onto the market. In a classroom in the town of Sudbury, England, and in the cities of Sao Paulo and Mexico City, fans of all stripes embarked on a common treasure hunt for the 670 stickers depicting the players and teams from this World Cup. In some places, Panini stickers are considered more valuable than gold.
Francesco Farnari is the biggest official Panini distributor in the United States. An Italian Venezuelan American, he is the ultimate Panini sticker evangelist at age 74. He has completed every sticker album since 1974, including the 2022 vintage many times over—he already has seven albums completed. A pack costs $1.20, and Farnari predicts sticker sales from 2022 will reach 100 million packets in the U.S. alone, nearly a billion worldwide.
Farnari explains the appeal: "You have all your legends, you have all your best players at a distance of your hand. You can touch them. You can talk to them. It's fantastic." When Argentina ran out of stickers in September, its Secretary of Commerce called an emergency meeting to solve this national crisis.
The physical sensation cannot be replicated digitally: "This sensation to get a pack, to rip it out, to smell it, to open it, and to find the place right here—there is no way you can replicate it in an electronic way." Every single pack must be opened in the same way. Farnari has opened at least 2,000 packs up until now.
Panini's headquarters in Modena, Italy, is the equivalent of Willy Wonka's factory. Stickers roll off the press 21 hours a day, producing 11 million packets a day, each containing five stickers. Featured players include Mbappe, Messi, and Modric, along with emerging stars.
The phenomenon started next to the cathedral at a newspaper kiosk in the center of Modena after World War II. Olga Panini, a widow, ran the newsstand with her four sons. Each had a special skill. The oldest son, Giuseppe, was the dreamer with the big plans. Giuseppe's initial idea was to sell cards depicting flowers, which was a disaster, but they realized the formula was okay, not the subject.
Short of lira, Giuseppe had one last shot on goal. In 1961, he turned to a new subject: Italian soccer. It was a hit, especially with the kids, even if production was rudimentary. All the stickers were printed, cut, and mixed with a shovel at the beginning to make sure there were no duplicates. They replaced the shovel with a churn normally used for making butter.
Giuseppe's brother Umberto, the family engineer, invented machinery that mixed stickers to prevent dreaded duplicates in each pack. His contraptions were so successful the designs are still in use today, sixty years later. This enabled the brothers to scale up their ambitions. Before the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, they paid $1,000 cash to soccer's governing body to buy the rights to produce stickers of the players, not least the great Pele. Suddenly Panini became chiefly associated, not with a sandwich, but with a worldwide pastime. The growth of the stickers mirrored the growth of soccer.
Antonio Allegra, Panini's marketing director, explained how collecting the World Cup albums over the decades became a rite of passage and a way to mark time. The albums document historical moments such as Maradona's first World Cup appearance and a very young Messi at age 19 in Germany 2006. There are countries that have fallen off the map and hairstyles that have fallen out of fashion.
Marcella Minori, Panini's project manager overseeing image control, sometimes receives requests to fix imperfect pictures—too dark, a pimple on someone's face—requiring a little Photoshop. One federation once requested fixing a player described as "really ugly." The first reply is always "no worry, we're going to change the picture." By the fourth time, the response is: "This is his face. It's his face. I'm sorry. We did all we could."
Gigi Buffon, one of the greatest goalkeepers who literally saved Italy during its run to the World Cup trophy in 2006, still collects stickers at age 44. A hobby since childhood, he likes the ritual of going to the kiosk to buy 10 packets of stickers. "It's a little embarrassing, but now I can say to the kiosk owner, the stickers are for my kids, and he believes me."
Buffon revealed that 60 to 70 percent of players in the locker room fill the album. He appeared in four World Cup albums. His favorite sticker was for the 2006 album, the last time Italy triumphed at the World Cup. He described the photo shoot as a solemn moment: "There was a kind of respect that I had to show towards Gigi the child and to the dreams of Gigi the child."
Gianni Bellini is considered the most prolific Panini collector in the world. He lives in what is less a home than a sticker repository, with half a million stickers spilling out of every drawer. He has five copies of the debut edition, Mexico 1970, the holy grail of World Cup sticker albums, and he is not selling. He even has whole sheets hidden under a tablecloth—no one is allowed to eat on the table because it's too sacred.
His long-suffering wife Giovanna has a sense of humor. If there were a fire, Bellini would rescue the stickers first: "The stickers can't [fend for themselves]." Saturday nights are spent filling albums while Giovanna watches a movie. He remembers the first sticker he got in a pack—Sergio Carantini, a defender from Vicenza—fifty years later.
Those kids who grew up in the 70s collecting stickers are now grandparents and parents passing down the tradition. Farnari notes: "There is no way you can find a product that you can have different generations doing at the same time."
Almost everyone who completes their album does so not through purchase power but through old-fashioned face-to-face trading. Around the world there are Panini sticker swapping sessions that are organized, others that are impromptu. In these tribal, polarized times, stickers take people and countries and bind them together.
Completing an album produces a feeling comparable to scoring a goal in the final of a tournament. It is an old-timey analog hobby—no screen required—that relies on the humanity of touch, and the value is largely sentimental.
Keep 60 Minutes in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
