Pelé will be buried in 14-floor 'super-cemetery' with a museum and waterfall after lying-in-state on football pitch
31 December 2022, 00:23 | Updated: 31 December 2022, 00:24
Pelé's coffin will occupy the ninth floor of a 14-storey super-cemetery after a burial parade that will stop outside his 100-year-old mother's house.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The three-time World Cup winner passed away on Thursday aged 82 after a long battle with bowel cancer.
Pelé will be housed in Ecumenical Necropolis Memorial, less than a kilometre away from home ground Vila Belmiro, where Pelé played almost his entire senior career for Sao Paulo state club Santos.
The memorial site is also home to a car museum, a waterfall and 14,000 high-security vaults.
Brazil's eminent football icon will lie-in-state in the centre circle of the Santos pitch for 24 hours, with thousands expected to visit the coffin.
It will then be paraded through the streets to Ecumenical Necropolis Memorial, stopping briefly at his bed-bound mother's home.
Read more: Harry Redknapp pays tribute to ‘main man’ Pelé
Read more: Tributes pour in for Pelé as daughter shares touching final photo with football legend
Pelé chose to occupy the ninth floor of the building in 2003, a nod to the shirt number his own father wore as a player.
Tens of thousands of Brazilians are expected to line the streets to see Pelé's coffin in what is likely to be one of the nation's biggest ever funerals.
The global superstar won three World Cups with the Brazilian national team between 1958 and 1970, and remains the only player ever to do so.
Pelé had been moved to end-of-life care at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paolo after his body stopped responding to chemotherapy to treat bowel cancer.
His agent confirmed on Thursday that the iconic player had passed away.
Shortly after, Pelé's daughter Kely Nascimento, posted an heartbreaking final photo of him holding hands with family as he lay in hospital bed.
She wrote: "Everything we are is thanks to you.
"We love you infinitely. Rest in peace."
Harry Redknapp remembers the talent he saw the late Pelé display on the pitch.
