As the 2022 FIFA World Cup approaches, football fever has once again hit Malta, with thousands of locals eager to watch games at home or at pubs, put up flags of their favourite nations on their balconies, as well as wear teams' eccentric and colourful shirts.

A trend that takes centre stage locally amid the World Cup hype is that of collectibles, ranging from sticker albums and card binders, all the way to limited edition scarves and memorabilia. Valletta-based store Anastasi Panini, which was opened by Dominic Anastasi who started importing collections in 1970, has since become emblematic of this hobby, with hundreds rushing to buy either the latest collections available or some of the rarer, older ones.

Speaking to WhosWho.mt, the store’s management explained that the hobby of collecting football stickers is something that a large number of people grew up doing. “Many tell us they used to collect the album with their father or grandfather and today continue their collection, with many eager to pass this experience on to their children,” management added.

“The oldest collectible we have is a Calciatori album from the 1960s, but the most prestigious one is the 1970 Mexico World Cup album.”

However, this trend was largely disrupted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting Anastasi Panini to launch its own online store to cater for the delayed UEFA EURO 2020 collection last summer.

“The pandemic changed the way we do business as we opened our website, allowing us to offer shipping directly to people’s homes as well. Also, people are trading on our Panini Stickers Malta Facebook group, as well as physically,” the management added.

Additionally, a large number of people with lists of missing stickers used to head to the area in front of the store to swap their duplicates, yet numbers dwindled last summer due to the pandemic. However, Anastasi Panini is witnessing a return to this trend, “especially on Saturdays”.

“As a consequence of the pandemic, physical trading is complemented with online trading. We also opened a pop-up shop at The Point in Sliema to offer another location where people can trade,” it said.

When asked about how it handles the influx of orders in the busy World Cup period, it remarked that apart from opening online orders, Anastasi Panini also does “a lot of preparation as soon as the stickers and albums are available, so we can distribute them around the island in a day”.

Panini stickers also made headlines recently due to their sharp rise in price, with packets of five stickers now being sold at €1, up by €0.10 from those of the EURO 2020 collection.

“We have been selling stickers and cards for Panini for over 50 years and the prices keep changing with the times as costs rise, just like every other product on the market,” Anastasi Panini remarked.

Management added that while Malta has been described as a “football mad island”, with this passion being passed on to collectibles, there are other collections that are also popular, including “movie ones such as Jurassic World which was filmed in Malta, and Disney’s latest hit Encanto”.