The world cup, a world tradition, in which every four years countries compete against each other to the prestiged title of winning the world-wide competition. This year has been no different from the others, with Qatar hosting this year’s cup, fans are running in from all around the world. But Brazil has an extra element that makes the world cup even more remarkable, the sticker album. After buying the album at their local newsstand, fans must buy sticker packs containing five players each. Every set of two pages contains a team from a country, including every player from that country, a team photo, and a rare gold symbol of the country. This tradition has been around since the Mexican world cup in 1970. But a key factor has been threatening the sticker album.
The price of the sticker pack has been increasing at alarming rates. The portion contains five players, and possibly contains an extra sticker sometimes. The standard price for the sticker packs is four reais, which is around 0.80 dollars. But if we compare the prices of the last world cup’s prices we can see that the pack has doubled in value. With the album having a total of 670 total spots to stick players to, this means if the person gets no duplicates, and doesn’t lose any stickers, a total of 536 reais would be needed to complete the album. Which compared to previous world cups is a decent increase. That is why trading stickers is key to having a successful completion of this tradition. Here is a graph comparing the prices of stickers according to each world cup:
The prices have kept many lower income families from completing the album this year, now you see less people trading stickers all around common areas. Fans are also being forced to buy less packets, meaning it takes longer for a full album completion. After talking to a local in my city, he said something that shocked me in a way. He said he has been collecting the past albums for years, but this year he decided to give up on the tradition, the rising prices of packets made him quit. If prices continue to rise people will not able to buy enough packets for trading and full completion.
Even with the prices skyrocketing to an overwhelming 860% in the last 20 years, Brazilians still keep this tradition alive. Meeting at trading points with the single purpose of meeting with strangers and trading stickers. It is all about getting together with different people, and not only completing the sticker album.
EAC PRESS 