The NPD Group reports 6.6m football-related toys and stickers sold since the beginning of 2018.

With just under a fortnight to go before the national squad’s opening game on 18th June, £11m has already been spent in the UK on football and Fifa World Cup themed toys, including Panini Moscow stickers, Match Attax and Trump Cards. The Single pack of Panini Fifa World Cup 2018 stickers was the second best-selling item in the week ending 19th May, at an average price of 80p, with the six-pack (£4.55) ranked at number six.

The top five best-selling football-related toys in the UK, week ending 19th May 2018, were all Panini products, with the Fifa World Cup 2018 1 Pack in first, then the Fifa World Cup Russia 2018 6 Packs, then Fifa World Cup Russia 2018 10 Packs, then Fifa World Cup 2018 Adrenaline XL Packs, and then the Fifa World Cup 2018 Album + 3 Packs.

Frédérique Tutt, toys global industry analyst, The NPD Group, commented: “The last significant football event – the UEFA 2016 European Championship – had a huge impact on the toy industry. More than 24m football-related toys were sold in the UK – that’s 6% of all the toy sales by volume in the country that year. So far in 2018, football-related toy sales total £11m – that’s including Premier League related toys too. And in the most recent week that we have data for, the seven days ending 19th May, £921,000 was spent on football-related toys – that’s almost £5,500 an hour. With one in eight toys sold in the UK in the third week of May being football-related, the next few weeks will give the toy sector a welcome boost.”

She continued: “Sales of football-related toys almost double in Euro and World Cup years, showing just how important the sport is to the toy sector. This makes football unique in terms of its impact on toy sales as other regional and global sports competitions such as rugby, tennis and even the Olympics has yet to have a similar effect on sales.”