Pelé Laid To Rest In Santos, Brazil

• Mourners line streets as football icon moves to final resting place
• Private burial in Santos after eight-mile funeral procession
• Casket taken to cemetery near stadium where his career began

Brazil’s football icon, Pelé has been buried in the port city where he began his career nearly 70 years ago, with the country’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, flying in to lament the “irreparable loss”.

Pelé, who died last week age 82, scored most of his 1,283 goals for Santos Football Club and it was at a cemetery near the team’s Vila Belmiro stadium where he was laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon after an emotional three-hour procession through town.

“This is such a difficult moment … but we feel great honour and pride,” Pelé’s son, Edinho, told reporters after his father was interred. “Now, he will rest.”

Pelé’s eight-mile funeral cortege through Santos, which attracted thousands of grieving residents on to the streets, followed a 24-hour public wake at the ground where he had made his name as a teenager in the 1950s.

More than 230,000 mourners from across Brazil filed past Pelé’s coffin after the wake began at 10am Monday, voicing adoration and regret over the passing of a sporting legend who won three World Cups and became the country’s most famous international calling card.

A giant banner draped over one of the stands captured emotions with the words “Viva o Rei” (“Long live the king”).

“I’m filled with so much sadness, it wasn’t his time to go,” said Lisete Santos, a 69-year-old administrative worker who had passed by the casket twice. “Pelé is eternal, there will never be anyone like him again. This is why we are here to pay our respects.”

Lula joined mourners on the pitch of the 16,000-capacity ground on Tuesday morning after jetting in from the capital, Brasília, where he was sworn in for a historic third term as president on Sunday afternoon.

The football-loving leftist politician, who grew up watching Pelé (born Edson Arantes do Nascimento) play, comforted the sportsman’s relatives and friends under a white marquee where the coffin had been draped with the yellow and green flag of Brazil and Santos’ white flag.

Joining mourners paying tribute to Pelé before the funeral, Brazil’s President Lula spoke to Santos’s official television channel and voiced profound regret over the death of a sportsman whom he called a model of “good character, humility and dignity”.

He added: “Pelé is so special. You can’t compare him to anyone because there is nobody comparable when it comes to being a football player or a human. He’s a player who, from a very young age, enjoyed such extraordinary exposure … but was never snooty. He was always a humble citizen who treated others as equals.

“He never let himself become carried away with his brilliance or with the glory. Even in his most glorious moments, like when he met the queen of England, he acted as he would when meeting a normal person on the street.”

A message on a floral tribute sent by Lula and the first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, honoured “the great Brazilian, our king Pelé”.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the queue to enter the Vila Belmiro stretched for more than 2km (more than 1 mile) with tearful mourners waiting up to three hours to catch a glimpse of their idol.

“I’ve been here all night,” said Denis de Almeida Silva, a 43-year-old clothing store owner from São Paulo, as he emerged from the vigil. “He means so much to us as Brazilians. Wherever Pelé walked he represented Brazil. Edson Arantes do Nascimento might be gone. But Pelé will never die.”

After the wake ended at 10am on Tuesday, Pelé’s body was placed on a red fire engine by police guards and driven south towards the seafront. From there the cortege moved slowly east along the coast, towards the home of his 100-year-old mother, Celeste Arantes, news helicopters buzzing overhead.

Brazilian television channels suspended their normal programming to broadcast the procession, as happened in Argentina after the death of the footballer Diego Maradona in 2020.

Thousands of residents of all ages poured on to the streets of Santos to shout their hero’s name and applaud as his coffin passed by.

“We will all continue to carry a little piece of Pelé within us,” said Claudia Diegues, 47, a dental surgeon from Santos. “He was our hero, our symbol of hope.”

Finally, the footballer’s body was transported to Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, a “vertical” cemetery near the Santos stadium, for a private burial, which began at shortly after 2pm local time.

As the coffin was carried inside, a bugler sounded a rendition of Santos football club’s anthem, which was composed in the same decade the player launched his career at the age of 15.

For Jussara Giollo Ferreira, a black 23-year-old physical education teacher, who was among the mourners, Pelé’s legacy went beyond the pitch. “I see many of the kids I teach, they are inspired by what he was able to achieve.

“They look at him and say, why can’t I achieve the same? So I think this is the legacy he leaves us: to never give up, to have faith and to fight hard – just like he fought for us.”