We’re genuinely trying to muster up some outrage here, but we can kind of understand where he’s coming from. It’s the Panini World Cup sticker album for God’s sake.
It might not seem like a big deal for people who aren’t fans of football or collecting stickers and one might assume that the practise of sticker collecting isn’t as common in an age where distractions are far easier to find. But believe us, Panini sticker albums are still a big deal and they don’t come much, nay, any bigger than the Panini World Cup sticker album.
And it’s not just a pursuit for children either; avid sticker collectors will continue doing so well into adulthood and are prepared to do whatever it takes to get their hands on the precious ones missing in their album; even take them off students as a teacher in Colombia is alleged to have done recently.
According to El Espectador, a 13-year-old student in the city of Bucaramanga reported the teacher after seeing him in the staff room pasting in stickers confiscated from students who had been trading them in class.
Naturally, the allegations provoked outrage amongst the students and even their parents, with the mother of one student telling a local radio station: "It's no way to give an example to young ones, taking their stickers away for your own benefit.”
So well-constructed was the teacher’s devious plan, however, that he devised a cover story (well, he was claiming it as a genuine motive but we all know what he was up to) with El Espectador reporting that the teacher claimed that he was confiscating the stickers because a commercial market was being created that was distracting students from their academic work.
As we said, we should be outraged but instead our gut instinct is to give this lad a pat on the back and a round of applause. That's what Panini sticker album obsession will do to you.
Hat-tip: Yahoo Sport
