Corinthian released a range of figures from the top league in France Le Championnat ligue 1 and they were released as part of the HEADLINERS range of figures. The name given to this release was Super Champions Football 1ere Division and they were distributed throughout France by toy company IDEAL. The figures were released in June of 1997.

 

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The range consisted of a total of 23 figures from 9 different teams, quite a few were repaints of the figures released for the French national team but there was also a good few first time sculpts included too, the majority of which were never used again.

 

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We saw the first ever sculpt of Brazilian and AC Milan legend Leonardo wearing the distinctive kit of PSG, we also saw the unusual sculpt of Robert Pires unusual because he had RED boots, which was somewhat of a rarity amongst the headliners, as most were painted with classic black boots.

 

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Some very eye catching kits were featured aswell, most notably those of Nantes and RC Lens which were colourful to say the least. Sadly Corinthian never again acquired the license for the French league so these were the only figures ever released from Ligue 1.

 

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Although initially very hard to acquire from France, which led to collectors parting with substantial amounts of money for the figures in the beginning, over time these figures have gradually decreased in value and are all easily found today. The main reason for this decrease in value was the discovery of a warehouse which had copious amounts of these figures in blister format, which led to the market being very quickly flooded with these figures and as a result they became much less valuable.

 

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Each figure was released in single blister packaging along with 4 player packs being released from PSG, Marseille and Monaco. Included in the blister was a collector card and also a collectors information file. This file featured some of the figures released as part of the range and also a selection of the French national figures.

 

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This release also gave collectors the opportunity to claim a free redemption figure simply by collecting the points which came on the back of the blister. Each single blister came with 1 point and you needed just 12 of these points to claim the redemption figure, which for this release was chosen to be Jean Pierre Papin in the French national white away kit despite the fact Youri Djorkaeff was pictured on the file as the redemption figure.

In addition to the redemption figure you could also use your points to claim either a 4 player display stand or a 12 player display stand complete with a 'Super Champions Football Equipe De France' backing card.

 

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A really finely detailed collection of figures which gave us some great figures and fantastic kits ,the only drawback is that more were not released.

 

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To see the range of figures released, please click the link buttons below.