Early cards As earlier as 1887, John Baines started producing and selling die-cut football cards in the shape of shields of different football teams and featured generic players representing the teams. earlier card of 1902 The earliest documented cigarette football card appears to be issued from a cigarette brand called Field Favorites depicting Duncan MacLean of
Liverpool F.C. However, the earliest cigarette association football cards from a known set are
Billy Bassett and
Charlie Athersmith from Godfrey and Phillips “General Interest” in 1896. Football cards were also produced circa 1896–1898 by the Marcus & Company Tobacco in
Manchester,
England. The set consisted of over 100 cards and was issued under the title of "Footballers & Club Colours". They featured illustrated images of players on the front of the card, and a tobacco advertisement on the back of the card. The
tobacco companies soon realised that sports cards were a great way to obtain brand loyalty. Production of football cards spread over the United Kingdom. Other football sets issued at that time were released by other tobacco manufacturers such as Kinner (1898), Ogden's (1902), J.F. Bell (1902), F.J. Smith (1902),
W.D. & H.O. Wills (1902), Percy E. Cadle (1904) and Singleton & Cole. by Ogden's Cigarettes, 1906. This company was one of the first to introduce full-color cards in football One of the first full-colour sets was released in 1906 by Ogden's. The set of cards depicted illustrations of footballers in their club shirts. The set (properly named "Football Club Colours") featured clubs
Everton,
Aston Villa,
Wolverhampton Wanders,
Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers,
Middlesbrough,
Tottenham Hotspur,
Sheffield United and
Arsenal. The following year, Cohen Weenen published a similar series entitled "Football Club Captains". This included captains of lower divisions teams of English football.
Consolidation team from the
1921 FA Cup Final produced by
Player's Taking advantage of the rise popularity of football cards in the 1920s, Godfrey Phillips released collections in 1920, 1922 and 1923. Lacey's also produce its own series of cards in 1925. Ogden's reintroduced the illustration in card with the "Captains of Association Football Clubs and Colours" series with
paintings of players that
captained in their respective clubs. Following the trend,
John Player & Sons (or "Player's"), produced three consecutive series of illustrated cards: the first in 1926 consisting in
caricatures of notable players by R.P. Hill (signed as "RIP"), another with caricatures by
cartoonist George Douglas Machin (signed as "MAC") in 1927, and the last in 1928 (with no artist credited). De los Ríos' depictions of players would become a classic in football cards during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The breakthrough in Argentine card industry came in 1970 when the first metallic circular cards began to be marketed in the "Chapitas" album. They were promoted as "El golazo del año" ("Goal of the year").
Modern era trading card from the
Mexico 70 series, Panini's first
FIFA World Cup collection
Italian company
Panini started to produce football cards in 1961, when the company released a collection set about
Serie A. Since then, Panini has been producing football cards until consolidating as the world's leading manufacturer. In 1970 Panini began publishing ''L'almanacco Illustrato del Calcio Italiano'' (The Illustrated Guide to Italian Football), after purchasing the rights from publishing house Carcano. Panini also published its first
FIFA World Cup sticker album for the
1970 World Cup in
Mexico, in addition to using multilingual captions and selling stickers outside of Italy for the first time. Initiating a craze for collecting and trading stickers, Panini's stickers were an instant hit, with
The Guardian stating in the UK "the tradition of swapping duplicate [World Cup] stickers was a playground fixture during the 1970s and 1980s". Another first for Panini, in the early 1970s, was introducing self-adhesive stickers, as opposed to using glue. is depicted on this "Deportito" card, 1963 In
Spain, the first collection released by Panini was the
1974 World Cup album. The Spanish market introduced digital collections when Stampii, an
internet company established in 2009, released one year later its first set of digital trading cards. Collectors were allowed to acquire sets or share their collections only through the web. In the
United States,
Upper Deck (established in 1988), released a series for the
1994 World Cup featuring several sports personalities that promoted the competition. The same company launched several collections after a deal with
Major League Soccer (MLS) in the 2000s. Another US company,
Pacific Trading Cards, produced
MISL/
indoor soccer cards in the 1980s and 1990s. Asian manufacturers include
Futera, a
United Arab Emirates company established in 1989 that got licenses of some of the most notable English clubs. For the 2014 World Cup, three million FIFA.com users took part in the Panini Digital Sticker Album contest. Panini developed an app for the 2018 World Cup where fans could collect and swap virtual stickers. Five million people gathered digital stickers for the 2018 World Cup. During the
2018 World Cup, Panini produced an average of 8 and 10 million card packages per day. In 2018, Panini signed a deal with English
Premier League to produce cards under license since the 2019–20 season. ==Manufacturing companies==