Messi World Cup sticker mania spurs black market in Argentina

[BUENOS AIRES] As Lionel Messi took the field for the first match of his record sixth Fifa World Cup on Tuesday (Jun 16), Argentines were chasing a different prize: his elusive golden sticker.

Thousands of kids and adults gather every weekend in the lead-up to the tournament in Parque Rivadavia, a historic park in central Buenos Aires, where collectors trade stamps, coins and now, Panini stickers, to fill up their albums with the faces of every player representing the 48 teams competing in the World Cup.

After winning the last tournament in 2022, Messi is king.

“If I get it, I’m keeping it for the rest of my life. It’s going to sleep with me,” said Franco Logiurato, 14. 

This year’s album features spaces for 980 stickers and the Italian manufacturer offers 20 additional collectible rare stickers featuring the most popular players, each available in purple, bronze, silver and gold. One extra collectible sticker appears on average in every 100 packs, the company told Bloomberg. 

Logiurato already filled up his album – costing his dad an entire pay cheque – and he’s now after the golden Messi sticker. “Just think about it,” he said. “It’s Messi’s last World Cup. It’s gold. I mean, it’s the most valuable thing there is.”

The craze has helped fuel shortages and driven up prices. Panini recommends selling packs of seven stickers for about US$1.40, but kioscos, or corner stores, that manage to get stock charge as much as US$2.10, according to Ernesto Acuña, head of the kiosco union.

During the last World Cup, Argentina’s leftist government intervened amid shortages. Under libertarian President Javier Milei, Acuña said that the union hasn’t pursued the issue.

“It’s a mini economy,” said Tomás Mingrone, 25, who spends his weekends buying, selling and trading duplicates. A teenager had just approached him offering a regular Messi sticker. Mingrone bid US$10.50. The seller walked away.

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“There are 12- or 13-year-olds here who make US$100 a day. It’s incredible,” he added.

The Argentine superstar’s children are also in on the fun, Messi said in a recent interview, and busy looking to collect a complete set of stickers for their albums.

Mingrone claims he knows how to identify packs that contain extra collector stickers and sells them, unopened, for US$17.49 each. Logiurato bought two but didn’t find his golden Messi. Mingrone estimates he has opened about 20,000 packs and found only two gold versions of the coveted Argentine megastar.

Santiago Arce, 22, was one of the lucky few to find the golden Messi, and is offering it for sale for US$140. To get it, Arce traded away four coveted extras – Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, France’s Kylian Mbappé, Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and England’s Jude Bellingham – along with 10 shiny stickers and 25 regular players.

“Each extra has its own story. Each one is a battle won,” Arce said.

Not everyone in the park was chasing the gold version.

Tahiel Cortez, 11, had just pulled a regular Messi sticker from a pack and was grinning ear to ear. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I got Messi!”

He still needs 120 stickers to complete his album. But for a moment, that hardly seemed to matter.

Come Jul 15, Panini will offer individual stickers for sale to complete albums. The additional collectible stickers won’t be available, the company said. BLOOMBERG