After 24 hours of wake, on Tuesday (3), a funeral procession through the streets of Santos paid its final tributes to Pelé and took the body of the King of Football to the place where he was buried, at the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, in the same city, in a ceremony for friends and family.
The procession began at the Estádio Urbano Caldeira, Vila Belmiro, home of Pelé’s former club, Santos, where the wake took place from 10 AM on Monday until 10 AM on Tuesday. The coffin was carried through the streets of Santos, even passing by the street where the former athlete’s mother, D. Celeste Arantes, who is 100 years old, lives.
The three-time world champion died on Thursday, December 29, at the age of 82, from multiple organ failure due to the progression of colon cancer.
Tributes from around the world have multiplied since then, with people of all ages gathering at his public wake. About 230,000 people passed through the stadium to say their final goodbye to Pelé, including the newly inaugurated President of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva, and football authorities, such as FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
“Pelé is eternal,” Infantino told reporters. FIFA will certainly honor the ‘king’ as he deserves. We ask all football associations around the world to observe a minute of silence before each match and we will also ask them, 211 countries, to name a stadium after Pelé. Future generations must know and remember who Pelé was,” he concluded.