Just barely a month after their debut last May 14, LEGO sadly announced the (very) early retirement of their latest minifigure series, the LEGO Team DFB Die Mannschaft CMF 71014. If you recall our previous news on this football CMF series, LEGO intended to have this set of minifigs exclusively available in territories such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Its exclusivity was quite appealing even among LEGO fans that are not quite fond of the sport. The sad news was delivered by Brickset earlier today, as one of its forum members revealed what seems to be a legit correspondence from a LEGO Shop@Home representative. The following screen grab was said to be taken from a Facebook group page dedicated to trading and selling LEGO minifigures.
This was later on confirmed by another Brickset forum member, Tero, when he inquired why 71014 will no longer be available. LEGO was kind enough to reply and this is what their representative said.
We haven’t heard of any official press release from LEGO regarding the retirement of the LEGO Team DFB Mannschaft minifigures, but if we will consider the veracity of the above mentioned statements coming from certain LEGO reps, they’ve made it very clear that LEGO will no longer produce the said CMF. Though LEGO did not admit it directly, it seems to be a classic case of an absurdly high demand outweighing the supply – and a supply that will no longer be replenished unfortunately. It’s just mind-blowing to think how 30,000 minifigs were sold in as little as 24 hours.
For those who were fortunate enough to acquire the entire set of 16 minifigures such as the guys over at Bricks User Group from Singapore, kudos to you for acting early. I am not exactly a fan of football, but seeing how the LEGO community responded positively towards this series, we can expect that their value will skyrocket anytime soon over at eBay.
What do you think about LEGO’s decision of retiring this CMF line at such very short time? Do you think they made the right call? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.