The stadium where Brazilian football great Pelé played some of the best matches of his career will hold his funeral on Monday and Tuesday.
Santos, the club where Pelé played in Brazil, said in a statement said that the public will be able to pay their final respects at Vila Belmiro Stadium, outside Sao Paulo.
Pelé, whose full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer. He was 82.
Santos said the coffin carrying the three-time World Cup champion will leave Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo early Monday morning and will be placed in the center circle of the field.
Visitation will start Monday at 10 a.m. and finish the next day at the same time.
Pelé’s casket will be carried through the streets of Santos and will pass in front of the home of his 100-year-old mother, Celeste. Recent reports in Brazilian media say Pelé’s mother cannot leave her bed and is not lucid.
The burial will take place at the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, a vertical cemetery in Santos. Only family will attend.
Pelé has a home in Santos, where he lived most of his life. He spent his last years in the city of Guarujá.
The Brazilian soccer legend who won three World Cups and became the sport’s first global icon, died at the age of 82.
“Everything that we are, is thanks to you,” his daughter Kely Nascimento wrote in a post on Instagram, under an image of family members holding Pele’s hands. “We love you infinitely. Rest in peace.”
Pelé had a colon tumor removed in September 2021. Neither his family nor the hospital have said whether it had spread to other organs. He returned to the Albert Einstein hospital on November 29 with COVID-19 and a respiratory infection.
Last week, the hospital said in a statement his cancer had advanced.
Pelé led Brazil to World Cup victory in 1958, 1962 and 1970 and remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Neymar tied Pelé’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.
