Cards
Soccer cards gain ground as World Cup comes to North America
Over the last five years, soccer cards have quietly become one of the hottest segments of the modern sports collectibles market, and things are about to get even hotter this summer.
With the United States co-hosting the FIFA World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico starting on June 11, soccer cards are expected to ballon in both popularity and value. For collectors, the 2026 World Cup isn’t just a sporting event, it’s a catalyst for even more growth.
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For decades, soccer cards lagged far behind baseball, basketball, football and hockey. But a perfect storm, ignited by soccer’s growing popularity in North America, pushed cards into the spotlight. Soccer fans who once hunted for rookie cards and stickers of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo now find themselves competing with investors and new collectors drawn by the thrill of discovering the next global superstar.
“The months leading up to the World Cup should theoretically bring a big interest and focus on soccer cards,” said Paul Silva, a New Jersey-based soccer card collector. “Many predicted an increase at the last World Cup, which really didn't materialize. But this time, there are a few factors that will most likely help assure it will happen.
“Since the World Cup is being held in North America and in the summertime, as opposed to the 2022 World Cup, which was held in the winter in Qatar, there will be less competing sports on TV this time. Instead of fighting for TV air time and interest with basketball, football and hockey, this time soccer will only be competing against baseball.”
The soccer card boom truly accelerated during the pandemic and ushered in a group of younger stars such as Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. More recently, young stars like Lamine Yamal and Endrick have also become highly collectable.
“In the last five years, I’ve added scoring machines Mbappe and Haaland to my PC,” Silva added. “Messi and Mbappe already have won a World Cup each. It would be great if Cristiano Ronaldo wins the 2026 World Cup and retires, while Haaland is still very young and will have other chances to win it in the future.”
The interest in younger players, however, also forced collectors to go back in time in search of other key stickers and cards of legendary players like former New York Cosmos great Pelé and Diego Maradona, fueling a soccer card market that never existed prior to 2020. These once overlooked collectables skyrocketed in value, becoming symbols of soccer’s growing reach.
“Trading cards for soccer didn't really become a consistent product until the early 2000s. Compare that to other major sports where the modern trading card era started decades earlier,” Upper Deck President Jason Masherah wrote in a 2025 LinkedIn post. “Soccer is still relatively young in the collectibles space, and that matters when you're trying to build collector loyalty and market infrastructure.”
While soccer is a global game with collectors scattered across the globe, a World Cup played in the United States, like the one first held on American shores in 1994, means massive exposure for a North American market with lots of money and an appetite for collectibles.
The hype also means collectors have started to buy soccer cards earlier in the lead up to the 48-team tournament.
“The World Cup is the most popular and most viewed sports event in the world by a wide margin,” Silva said. “Interesting enough, the pre-World Cup fever started very early as there was an upsurge in the soccer card market— especially Messi and Ronaldo rookie cards—this past August and September that also carried through the month of October.”
At the same time, Panini, who holds the FIFA license, is preparing special World Cup sets, including the very popular sticker album and Prizm cards.
“This is a super-exciting moment. It’s been 32 years since there’s been a World Cup in the United States,” Panini Senior Vice President Jason Howarth said. “Panini America has been waiting for this moment for a very long time.”
In fact, the coming World Cup could ignite a fresh wave of demand—one fueled both by national pride and investment potential—once the summer rolls around. Even Fanatics Fest 2026, which will be held in New York this July, was moved a few weeks forward to coincide with the World Cup final on July 19 at nearby MetLife Stadium.
Masherah said the trading card market has struggled in the past because it has “historically been centered in North America, while the best soccer players compete in Europe.”
But aside from the global popularity of stickers, Masherah predicted that soccer cards “will continue to grow, especially as the sport gains traction in North America and younger collectors with diverse backgrounds come into the market. But catching up to sports with a 30- to 40-year head start in the trading card space? That takes time.”
Clemente Lisi
