A football finance expert has estimated that a fully completed book will cost hundreds…
It’s finally back – The Panini World Cup 2022 sticker album has been released. Football fans across the country, teenagers and grown men alike, will be thrilled to hear their pocket money and month’s wages will once more be spent on stickers – what a time to be alive.
Fans have been collecting stickers and trading cards for more than 50 years, but the World Cup, held every four years, holds a particular resonance and place in hearts. The first World Cup edition in the UK was launched for the 1970 tournament in Mexico.
In the early days, a pack of four stickers would cost about 5p each, but now, with packs containing an extra sticker, they will set collectors back 90p. Not cheap but we just can’t resist.
But how much would a full completed book cost? Well, according to author and football finance expert Kieran Maguire, there are 670 stickers to collect for this year’s album, which, assuming were all bought on the first go, would cost £120.60.
However, if you’ve ever bought Panini stickers, you’ll know how much of a ludicrous assumption that is. Mr Maguire explained that based on probability, it is more likely to set fans back £883.80.
According to Professor Paul Harper, a mathematician at Cardiff University, the typical cost to fill the 2018 album was about £774. That year, the cost of a pack of five stickers, yes, just five, was increased from 50p to 80p and the album also included more stickers, with 682 to collect.
If a collector was extremely lucky – this will never happen – and never had a duplicate in the packets they bought, Professor Harper explained that they would need a minimum of 137 packets to complete the entire book, costing £109.60.
Inflation pushes average cost of filling Panini 2022 World Cup sticker album to £870
Five-sticker packs for football tournament in Qatar are 12.5% more than for Russia 2018.
Inflation has come for the football sticker album. Collecting and completing the official Panini Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 album will cost fans an average of about £870.
There are a total of 670 Qatar 2022 stickers, which first went on sale last Thursday,
A migrant stadium worker who helped build the Qatar 2022 stadiums would need to have worked 1,964 hours to afford the cost of completing the album, based on the 45p-an-hour wage many were paid as revealed in a Guardian investigation.
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Panini reported annual sales of $1.4bn (£1.2bn) in 2018 on the back of strong demand for its Russia 2018 stickers. This was more than double the $613m revenue achieved in 2017.
All 32 qualified teams for the tournament – which starts on 20 November – are included in the album, and are represented by a squad of 18 players, official strips and badges. The collection consists of a total of 670 stickers, including 50 special stickers known as “shinies”
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