What Makes Maldini’s Corinthian Figure a Piece of 2002 History

Paolo Maldini AC Milan Corinthian Miniature — Coca-Cola World Cup 2002

A Corinthian Figure from Coca-Cola’s 2002 World Cup Campaign

This small PVC figure is part of a promotional collectible series that British toy maker Corinthian Figures produced in connection with the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan. Coca-Cola, a global sponsor of that tournament, put its name to the line — the product code CCWC-01 reads as “Coca-Cola World Cup, number one” — making this a multi-brand collaboration drawing simultaneously on licensing from FIFA, AC Milan, and Coca-Cola. The exact distribution model for the series, whether sold at retail or issued as a promotional item, is not fully settled in available records.

Corinthian Figures was a British company founded in 1994, best known for its ProStars line: small PVC figures of footballers and other athletes rendered in a distinctive oversized-head caricature style. The company covered English and European football clubs extensively through the late 1990s and early 2000s, releasing figures individually, in blister packs, and in team sets. The Coca-Cola World Cup figures share the same design language as the ProStars range. Corinthian ran into financial difficulties around 2005, and its brand and molds subsequently passed to another company, closing the catalogue to any new additions.

This particular piece shows Maldini in AC Milan’s home kit: the club’s red-and-black vertical stripes bearing the Opel chest sponsor, a logo the German automaker held from 1994 to 2005. His surname is stamped on the base.

Maldini, Milan, and Why the Subject Still Resonates

Paolo Maldini spent his entire professional career — from 1984 to 2009 — at AC Milan, playing as a left back and eventually a centre back. That kind of single-club loyalty is uncommon at the highest level of the game, and over 25 years it made him as much a symbol of the club as a player within it. His honours with Milan include seven Serie A titles and five UEFA Champions League trophies, with victories in 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, and 2007. He also earned 126 caps for the Italian national team, placing him among the most-capped players in Italian football history at the time of his retirement.

By 2002, when this figure was produced, Maldini was 33 and still central to both club and country. Italy’s run at that tournament ended in the Round of 16 against South Korea, a result that remains one of the more debated outcomes in World Cup history.

Three things converge in this figure that tend to draw football collectors. Maldini’s reputation as one of the finest defenders the game has produced maintains steady interest in items bearing his likeness, independent of any particular era. The 2002 World Cup was the first tournament held in Asia and the first co-hosted by two nations; being part of Coca-Cola’s official campaign for that event places this piece in a specific, well-documented chapter of football promotional history. And Corinthian’s exit from manufacturing in the mid-2000s means the ProStars line and its related series are a closed set — collectors who focus on the company’s output work with a finite catalogue that will not grow.