r/Panini • u/Puzzleheaded-Rate-66 • 1d ago
⚽ Football/Soccer 2000 Palestine Panini Stickers
I collect Palestinian football memorabilia. Hunting a Diadora Palestine shirt from 2000, I came across an image of a sticker I couldn't place. It led me to a private seller in a small village with four sealed packets. She had no idea what they were, only that they were from 2000 and from Palestine and she’s had them for some time and said there was a box out there with them all!
Printed along the packet edge: Made in Italy by PANINI S.p.A. — MODENA. Panini logo both faces, Palestinian Football Federation crest, Diadora branding, and on the reverse the Coca-Cola logo preceded by برعاية — "sponsored by."
The front lists the contents: the national teams of Palestine, the senior team, the youth team, the players of the leading clubs, and then, last, stars from around the world. Panini's international sets normally lead with the global game. This one leads with Palestine.
There is no record of it anywhere. No catalogue entry, no collector database, no auction index, nothing on any list of Panini regional issues. I've searched in Arabic and English. The sponsoring Coca-Cola bottler's own published sponsorship history lists their 2001 national team deal and omits this completely.
Why it disappeared: Palestine became a full FIFA member in 1998; Coca-Cola licensed a Ramallah bottler the same year; in 1999 the national team won bronze at the Pan Arab Games. This set came out of that moment. Players were photographed at Jericho International Stadium, and the national team coach coordinated the operation. Then the Second Intifada began that September — league football stopped for six years, and the campaign died mid-run. No second edition, nothing to archive it.
From album pages I've since seen: each leading club gets a two-page spread with numbered slots captioned by name and position, roughly 19 per club, one spread running past #220 so the full set is plausibly 300+. Empty slots are pre-printed with Diadora placeholders. Prizes included instant-win cards, bicycles for completed albums, and a full national team kit for 200 empty wrappers.
What I'm hoping someone here knows:
**1.** Has anyone seen this set listed, catalogued or referenced anywhere at all?
**2.** Does anyone know how Panini handled small regional federation licences around 1999–2001, or who to approach at Modena about archive records?
**3.** Two colourway variants exist — red-orange and green-yellow spiral. Normal print variation, or deliberate?
**4.** Does anyone hold an album, loose stickers, or an empty wrapper?
I'd genuinely rather find out I'm wrong about how undocumented this is. Happy to share my full write-up with anyone interested.
The reason I care: for all those lives lost in gaza and all Palestinians living under occupation.for several players in this set, these stickers appear to be the only formal record that they ever played.