THOUSANDS OF mourners lined the streets as Brazilian football icon Pelé was laid to rest in Santos, the city of his former club.
Pelé had been lying in state for 24 hours in the centre of the pitch at the club’s Urbano Caldeira stadium for the public to pay their respects.
People crowded the streets on Tuesday as his coffin was carried on a fire truck to a private family funeral.
Pelé – a three-time World Cup winner – died at the age of 82 on 29 December.
Arguably the world’s greatest ever footballer, he had been receiving treatment for colon cancer since 2021.
Brazil’s government declared three days of national mourning after his death, and the country’s new president – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – travelled to Santos to pay his respects.
Covered with a Brazilian flag, Pele’s coffin was carried on a fire truck through the packed roads of fans.
The procession also passed by the house where his 100-year-old mother, Celeste Arantes, still lives.
Santos FC said more than 230,000 people had attended his 24-hour wake in the Vila Belmiro stadium, where a steady stream of mourners continued through the night.
The funeral cortege ended at the port city’s Memorial Cemetery, where a Catholic funeral service was held before Pele is interred in a 10-storey mausoleum that holds the Guinness World Record as the tallest cemetery on Earth.
“Pele was the Pele of the people, he joined all of us,” commented a fan. “It’ll be hard to find someone else like him.
“In addition to being the best player in the world, he was a marvellous human being.”
Santos FC, where Pele spent the majority of his club career, tweeted: “Our eternal King Pele says goodbye in Vila Belmiro, his home, with his people.”
Images supplied (The coffin of the late Edson Arantes do Nascimento better known as Pelé, aboard the fire-truck as it made its way through the Santos area where he began playing his football career with Santos FC).
