Worth it? £773 to complete Panini Russia 2018 World Cup Sticker Book

The average cost to complete this years World Cup sticker book has been calculated to cost, on average, £733.

There has been a 60% increase in the cost of a single pack of stickers, rising 30p from the Euro 2016 equivilent. The calculation is by Professor Paul Harper from Cardiff Universtiy's School of Mathematics, who created a formula to include the least probable number of duplicate stickers.

The staggering sum will come as a great shock to enthusiasts of the hobby which grips children and adults alike from nations all over the world.

"Filling an album has become progressively more expensive over the years since then, not just because there are typically more teams competing now, but because Panini have become more creative about allocating spaces." said the Professor.

However, Panini have responded to the claim: "The theoretical cost calculated by the academics assumes that the collector is in a bubble with no one to swap with or no access to the internet to send off to our missing stickers service." said the Italian company, who offer a service where collectors can order missing sticker directly via their website.

The sum of £733 is misleading in the sense that collectors generally partake in "swaps" with fellow collectors. A further calculation showed that With 10 friends swapping, it would cost them an average of £247 each to complete the album - £486 lower than the sum given by the formula.

The Panini album contains 32 squads of players, managers, stadiums and World Cup legends, giving an overall total of 682 stickers.

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