Dan HajduckyMay 7, 2026, 06:50 AM ET
FIFA and Fanatics have signed a long-term exclusive license allowing Topps, owned by Fanatics, to produce trading cards, stickers and trading card games for the World Cup and other FIFA events starting in 2031.
Financial terms weren't made available, but a source familiar with the deal says the length "spans multiple [World Cup] cycles."
"Across the sports landscape, we see that Fanatics are driving massive innovation in collectibles that provides fans with a new, meaningful way to engage with their favorite teams and with their favorite players," FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement.
"So, from FIFA's point of view, we can globalize that fan engagement precisely thanks to our global tournament portfolio. And this provides another important commercial revenue stream that we channel back, as always, into the game, into football."
The agreement ends Panini's decades-long FIFA World Cup sticker license. Apart from the United States-hosted 1994 World Cup, Panini produced FIFA World Cup stickers and cards from 1970 through the 2030 edition of the tournament.
Topps had already replaced Panini as UEFA's exclusive trading card, stickers and collectibles licensee and producer of sticker albums for the 2024 and 2028 men's Euros, the 2025 women's Euros and Nations League Finals through 2028.
"It's a pretty meaningful addition to us," Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin told ESPN. "It represents the single biggest thing globally we could do to grow our business."
Rubin said a dinner five years ago in the Hamptons with Robert and Jonathan Kraft, Infantino and FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom laid a foundation.
"At that point, we'd won a bunch of rights in America, we had a lot of ideas, but hadn't proven them," Rubin said. "I think we've proven them so much over the last couple of years that it was natural for FIFA to want to partner with us."
Most notably in collectibles, the Debut Patch program pioneered first with Major League Baseball and introduced when Fanatics took over NBA trading card rights last fall and NFL trading card rights in April will be employed. Players will wear debut patches as early as this year's World Cup, despite the license not kicking in for years.
"When we win a set of rights, they're often done years in advance -- you saw NFL players wearing Premiere patches for the previous three seasons and those patches are all going into our cards," Rubin said. "There's a product build that goes into taking great ideas, and you need years of history to get those into cards."
Last month, Fanatics gained exclusive licensing rights to produce trading cards and sticker books for the men's and women's teams of Βραζιλία (in 2027), England and Germany (2031) and Italy (2035); according to Fanatics, the years on those deals remain.
An exclusive license signed this week to produce trading cards, stickers and trading card games for the Αργεντίνη men's, women's and youth national teams kicks in immediately.
A source familiar with the deal noted that similar future rights for the United States national teams have been signed. Fanatics also signed David Beckham to an exclusive deal in February.
Rubin points to the growth in UEFA League collectibles as an ideal: "I think they were a $15 million business when we started, they're over $200 million now ... the Euros have had tremendous growth, the Πρέμιερ Λιγκ has seen tremendous growth in the first year."
A source familiar with Fanatics' financials said their collectibles revenue will be "approaching $5 billion" in 2026, with a total company revenue close to "$14 billion."
"Our business is still 85% U.S.-based ... we opened a store in London about a year ago that's gonna do $35 million in volume this year, one of the biggest trading card stores in the world," Rubin says. "There's no bigger event in the world than the World Cup, so to take everything we've learned and now partner with FIFA, the opportunity across global football is incredible."
Fanatics will also globally distribute more than $150 million of collectibles free of charge across the lifetime of the partnership.
Fanatics Fest will also host the official FIFA World Cup final news conferences July 17 at New York's Javits Center, with coaches and players in attendance, and a watch party for the World Cup final on July 19.
FIFA selected Fanatics to serve as the official on-site retail licensee for the 2026 edition of the World Cup, managing in-venue retail operations for 104 matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
With the loss of more rights, Panini's future is murkier.
Panini and Fanatics continue to battle in court as the former accused the latter of anticompetitive behavior and monopolization of the sports card industry after they inked exclusive, lengthy deals with the NBA and NFL previously held by Panini, adding to exclusive licenses with the Premier League, MLB, F1, Bundesliga and WWE among others. (Fanatics denies Panini's claims and, in a still-active countersuit, alleges Panini engaged in a "protracted, unlawful and deceitful campaign of unfair trade practices and [...] deceitful misconduct" in the attempt to get Fanatics to pay inflated prices to terminate said licenses early.)
According to The Athletic, Panini claims it made $720 million in net sales from 2022 World Cup products and will make $1.48 billion and $1.5 billion off 2026 and 2030 World Cup licensed products, respectively.
In late 2025, Panini chose CitiGroup as a financial advisor to explore strategic options, including a full or partial sale and stock market listing.
Their reported valuation is $5.8 billion and shareholders are expected to decide on an external investment by year's end.
Δείτε νέα, κορυφαίες φάσεις και συνδεθείτε με φιλάθλους
