On May 18, at 8:20 p.m., Rémi Da Costa Araujo had his eyes riveted on his television.
While Didier Deschamps lists the names of the 26 players selected to compete in the Euro, he reviews those of the footballers registered in the Panini album placed on his knees.
He then has four differences between “his” list and that of the coach.
For this ex-journalist who became editorial manager in charge of sport at Panini, the task is delicate.
He had to anticipate the composition of the French team in February, the album having to be produced and put on the shelves well before the competition.
Difficult then to imagine the injury of the striker Anthony Martial.
Or the chef's surprise, the return of Karim Benzema, five and a half years after being excluded from the national team following his implication in a case of blackmail at the
sextape involving his teammate Valbuena.
PODCAST.
Karim Benzema: legend of Real, pariah of the Blues, why his return fascinates
On June 11, Euro 2020, delayed for a year by the Covid-19 pandemic, finally begins, and album sales should quickly grow according to the results of the Blues. With, for fans aged 7 to 77, the same pleasure: tearing the top of a paper sleeve, discovering the stickers it contains, flipping through the pages to find the right box and sticking the image there. Then, keep the duplicates to exchange them. A playground classic, born sixty years ago.
January 1945, World War II comes to an end.
La Gazzetta dello Sport rolled up and held under the arm, the verb high, the inhabitants of Modena, in northern Italy, crowd around a small kiosk, under the arcades of the Corso Duomo, a district of the city center.
They talk about politics, but especially football.
Olga Panini and her sons take turns to run this press counter.
Mischievous 20-something Giuseppe and Benito cheat out boredom by cutting out photos from unsold newspapers and giving them to customers.
In the 1950s, Umberto (left, behind the stall) and Giuseppe (right) Panini and their mother ran a newsstand in Modena, Italy.
Panini
Bolstered by this idea which seduced regulars, the brothers published, in 1961, a first booklet to be completed with stickers bearing the effigy of the players.
The children tear up this booklet dedicated to Calcio, the Italian championship, and exchange cardboard stickers (the “fifi”), before attaching them with a stick of glue supplied with the purchase.
Read also At the heart of the Panini saga
In a country passionate about football, success is immediate.
To exploit this good vein, the family is getting organized: from the choice of portraits to distribution, including printing, everything will be gathered in a factory north of Modena.
No "doubles" in a pocket, the obsession of leaders
On Avenue Emilio-Po, the machines roar for the first time in 1964, and seem to have never stopped since.
The production chain has changed little.
If the hand-drawn images have been replaced by photographs, laid out digitally, they are still printed on large sheets of paper, self-adhesive since 1973.
Then, direction the trimming, then the shuffling of the cards, "the mescola", perhaps the most important step of the process.
Isabelle Fillon, marketing director at Panini, guarantees it: there can be no "doubles" in the same pocket.
Panini being an Italian brand, it pays particular attention to the national championship, here the Calcio 2018-2019.
LP / Guillaume Georges
It was, moreover, from the outset of the project, an obsession of the leaders, which gave rise to funny scenes.
It is said that in the early 1960s, maps were spread out on the floor and thrown against a wall with shovels.
Another method was to mix them using a zangola, a wooden tool that was initially used to make butter, and whose drum spun around.
The industrial revolution will come from Umberto, youngest of the siblings, returned from South America to participate in the family destiny.
This mechanic enthusiast then invented the
“
fifimatic
”
, a machine allowing the labels to be inserted into the pockets before putting them in a box.
The “fifimatic”, a machine created in the 1960s by Umberto Panini (left), allows the thumbnails to be inserted into sleeves, themselves boxed, like those of the album Jesus, published in 1977. Panini
From the beginning of the 1970s, thanks to this automation, Panini bundled millions of images per day.
And it takes this pace to ensure the expansion of the brand.
Because the Brazilian team and its star Pele feed every conversation.
They reign then on the planet football and triumph again at the World Cup which is played in Mexico, in 1970.
Panini editions are accompanying this frenzy with an international album, the first sold outside Italy.
We will have to wait four more years, and the next World Cup, so that the little French can fill one.
Panini albums mainly owe their success to football competitions, such as Euro 2020, postponed for a year.
Panini
The opening of the French subsidiary in 1974 also coincided with the golden age of the Greens.
For several years, AS Saint-Etienne dominated national football and even reached the final of the European Cup of Champions Clubs (the ancestor of the Champions League), in 1976. The budding collectors of this period s 'remember it fondly.
"A cultural product that says a lot about the fashions of each era"
Panini stands out in the world of football and entertainment.
To dive back into past albums is to treat yourself to a Proust madeleine.
“It's a cultural product that says a lot about the fashions of each era,” notes the marketing manager.
In her eighteen-year career at Panini, she has seen tastes evolve.
Since their creation in 1961, Panini albums, especially those devoted to football, have become essential in children's bedrooms.
LP / Matthieu Turel
“Our editions from
The Lion King
and the
Hélène et les Garçons series
were commercial successes in the 1990s,” says the one who remembers buying them.
Today, the stars are the Marvel superheroes and the cartoon
Paw Patrol
.
Panini listens to what children like.
The main stakeholders are between 6 and 13 years old, but some enthusiasts do not let go of the tradition.
This is the case of Chris, 40, creator of the Panini Football Club Facebook group, where he shares detailed reviews of the different editions.
“I was 7 years old when I completed my first football album, in 1988. I discovered this sport with the cartoon
Olive and Tom
.
"
This history-geo teacher devotes a lot of hours and money to his passion.
He now has more than 1000 complete albums, some of which have been collected from collectors around the world, whom he contacts to obtain the editions of the foreign championships.
Panini albums are not only devoted to football, which allows them to appeal to a large audience among young people.
LP / Matthieu Turel
But the fan is sorry for the evolution of the market in recent years. “Some people artificially inflate prices by creating scarcity on cards that they buy en masse. “Because Panini assures him, there is no untraceable figure. All images are printed in equal quantity. And to those who can no longer skim the exchanges and scrutinize social networks in search of the recalcitrant sticker, the company has always offered to buy it. On the site, you can go back in time, order vignettes of competitions up to the 1986 World Cup for 2 euros each, against 30 cents for those of the current Euro.
In the Panini world, some do not hesitate to pay the price: a complete 1970 World Cup album signed by Pelé was sold for 12,000 euros in 2017. This copy of the first edition for a Mondial, signed by the legendary Brazilian is the holy grail.
And it could smash records if the sale took place today.
For now, the treasure is in the hands of an Italian.
Read also 2018 World Cup: the secrets of making the Panini album
The object is now a heritage character, but Panini has known mistakes, which almost made it disappear. In 1988, after the death of their mother, the Panini brothers sold the company. British press mogul Robert Maxwell takes over the affair, leads it down, then dies suddenly. Two owners later, the company returned to the Italian flag in 1999. This fruitful return to basics revived the epic. In 2018, a favorable year thanks to the Football World Cup, the company exceeded one billion euros in turnover.
In Nice, at the headquarters of Panini France, chaired by Alain Guerrini since 1979, each new album is a source of pride.
“It's a childhood dream,” says Rémi Da Costa Araujo, head of sports collections.
When we see our work in the hands of kids, we have the impression of passing the torch.
"
In 2019, Panini dedicated an album to the Women's World Cup, which was played in France.
Panini
Today, the group with the knightly logo has twelve subsidiaries, three production plants (in Italy, Brazil and the United States), employs more than 1,000 people and sells in 150 countries.
If the company does not give figures, it is estimated at 5 billion the number of stickers published per year.
As the Euro begins, Panini launches the printing of its “update” kit containing thumbnails of players officially called up, but who were not in the album. Benzema can be stuck next to the Blues crest.