Collector Club
After many years of waiting Panini has finally introduced the world to its EFL 2025/26 sticker album recently, and after a week of us all getting acquainted with the brand-new product, the feedback unfortunately hasn’t been great.
A whole host of collectors have raised complaints about the quality of the new album, with multiple social media posts cropping up across Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Reddit noting quality issues.
A number of posts, threads, and even a viral Tik Tok from JoshTalksEFL, a content creator with over 20,000 followers, showcase complaints about the quality of the albums, with most agreeing that the pages tend to fall out of most albums within hours of opening them for the very first time, something hugely disappointing when users are investing hundreds of pounds into completing their collections.
Panini EFL 2025/26 sticker albums dogged by durability issues
Beyond its durability, fans are debating the lack of a hardback option. In posts circulating in numerous Facebook groups and Reddit threads, one user says they were told in an email that Panini had “no plans” for a hardback album, while others suggest any issues with their albums may be batch-specific with some copies holding together better than others.
We have not seen an official Panini statement on a future hardback edition at time of writing; the company’s launch communications have solely focus on the collection’s scope rather than album formats.
Availability of stickers is proving to be another frustration for many. Despite launch messages touting nationwide retail, collectors have reported difficulty buying loose sticker packs, unless they’re bundled with the empty album. With an affordable product like this, you’d expect to see plenty of stock available in most shops across the country.
On Panini’s own online store, pretty much everything has been marked as out of stock since release, fuelling frustration among those keen to begin sticking. Heading over to eBay and paying slightly inflated prices is one of the best options at the moment.
A number of EFL clubs including Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic have promoted the new album launch heavily at stadium activations across the country, with matchday events becoming a more reliable source for packs than high-street shelves right now.
Collector Club’s own experience with the Panini EFL 2025/26 sticker album
The Collector Club team attended the official launch event in Manchester at the National Football Museum recently, obtaining an album early ahead of release.
Disappointingly, our copy has also shown spine and centre-page loosening on the same day we opened the book, and we have faced the same difficulty sourcing loose packs, so much so that we haven’t been able to buy any stickers since launch day.
We will continue to monitor restocks and any official comment from Panini UK. Hopefully Panini can get on top of this quickly, as it seems the demand for the stickers far out-weighed their expectations. We fully want to see the company at its very best, especially as Topps begins to take a hold of the football market for collectibles in the UK.
Keep coming back to Collector Club for all the latest sports card news and trading card news, keeping you up-to-date with everything that’s going on in the hobby!