However, parents and children who make daily pilgrimages to dozens of kiosks usually come across the same sign: “There are no figurines or albums.”
“The shortage of figurines is very complicated. On the one hand there is my frustration of not being able to buy from them, their frustration of arriving every day: ‘Hey, dad, did you buy figurines?’ There is none,” said Exequiel Claverie , a 38-year-old journalist and father of three children who are fans of the River Plate club.
The theme generated memes, funny sketches on social networks and even the creation of an app that allows you to track where to get the figurines and shows how the packages that arrive at the kiosks by the dropper are sold out in a matter of hours.
And the prices in Mexico?
On the Mercado Libre website for Mexico, the stamps with the figure of Messi for the Qatar 2022 Album They are sold from 599 pesos. Although there is also the sticker gold version, a special figure with a gold background with the Argentine star in action. This special card is offered in Mercado Libre for up to 8,000 Mexican pesos.
The company that manufactures them, the Italian Panini, says that the demand exceeded them, that this year more adults began to collect figurines and that they sold faster than in other world cups, but they clarified that they will soon replace them.
Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Mexico and Costa Rica are the countries of the region that will compete in the World Cup in Qatar, but the phenomenon of lack of figurines seems to occur only in Argentina.
The newsstands have protested because, unlike other years, the company distributed figurines and albums to also sell in large supermarkets and gas stations.
“The theme of the figurines is something that never happened to me,” said Marcelo Vázquez, 58-year-old owner of a kiosk in downtown Buenos Aires. “A mom told me the other day: ‘Do you know what my son is doing? He is drawing the figurine. Draw Messi to say I have Messi’s,'” he added.