Kerala’s priest celebrates FIFA World Cup with stamps

Wedded to the cause of religion, Father Tom John from Wayanad is also passionate about collecting stamps. Not only is his collection vast but they are connected with varied themes from sports to cultural and historical events.

For this ongoing FIFA World Cup 2022, he has collected stamps of countries that are celebrating this mega event. Every stamp that he has on the game will enable the viewer to know about the history of this nine-decade-old event.

His collection of stamps on just the game of football runs to 1,200 and these have been issued by 116 countries ever since the first World Cup started in 1930. For this World Cup, he has collected more than 30 stamps, including two issued by India.

As France is his favourite country to win the World Cup, he has collected all the possible stamps issued by that country. He also has rare stamps from some small African nations.

His total stamp collection runs to more than 55,000 on different subjects and among the other sports for which he has stamps include volleyball, cricket and cycling among others.

According to him, stamps have a historic value and that each one of them has a story to narrate. Apart from football, the priest is very fond of cricket and has had the opportunity to meet one of India’s most successful captain M.S. Dhoni and Australian legend, Adam Gilchrist.