Philippos Stavrou, a 51-year-old Cypriot fan of former French football star and current president of UEFA Michel Platini, is hopeful to break Guinness World Record for Largest Sporting Memorabilia Collection which has been kept by a Frenchman since 2008 with a collection of 1,625 pieces related with Benfica club.

Stavrou collected 21,137 pieces of memorabilia related with Platini such as photos, magazines, footballs, t-shirts, cups for the last 32 years and put all the collections in Museum of Michel Platini in Cyprus' southeastern Mosfiloti villiage, Larnaka district which he established in 1987.

Stavrou is an admirer of Platini who he believes to be the greatest football player in the world. While being asked by Xinhua recently why he had the idea of making the collections, Stavrou said: "I liked to play football when I was young, other players said I looked like Platini, so they called me 'Platini', then I got to know Platini was a very famous football player at that time, so I suddenly had the idea of collecting something related with him."

At the beginning, Stavrou collected photos, articles through newspapers and magazines and bought t-shirts, shoes and other things from shops and private collectors.

Stavrou said, "Since Internet came into being, I started to buy through Internet which makes the collection much easier. I look for various memorabilia about Platini from Internet, if I find any, I will buy."

Stavrou showed a t-shirt believed to be worn by Platini in a friendship competition. Regarding to this T-shirt, Stavrou said he bought it from the Internet with quite a lot of money.

Stavrou feels happy to have a hobby like collecting memorabilia of Platini, but the most happiest thing for him is when Platini came to visit his museum in October 2009.

Stavrou still remembers very well the visit which for him becomes a sweet memory.

"Mario Lefkaritis, a Cypriot who was vice president of UEFA, came to visit this museum, when Marios got out of the car, he asked me whether I am OK, I said OK, then he said 'do you know who came', then I saw Platini in the car, I was so excited."

Stavrou said Platini visited the museum and he was really moved by such a big collection. In the collections, there is a suit which is a gift from Platini to Stavrou following his visit to the museum.

With the suit Platini wrote a letter to Stavrou dated February 2010, "As promised during my visit to Cyprus last October, I send you herewith my old UEFA uniform. The UEFA uniform was worn for all different UEFA events from June 2004 to January 2010."

The museum also exhibits a cup which Platini sipped tea when he came to visit. Next to the cup is a soccer ball used in the 1984 European Championship that France won with Platini scoring nine goals including two hat-tricks.

In order to show his full admiration and love for Platini, Savrou legally changed his full name to Philippos Stavrou Platini. Endi

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