The almost concomitant exposure of remains of Pope Benedict XVI and Pelé, the parades of the faithful at Saint Peter’s Basilica and at the Santos stadium, seem to invite a somewhat hasty parallel on the universality of two religions, one spiritual – Catholicism –, the other profane – football. Certainly, the real but also highly publicized emotion aroused by the disappearance of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, says Pelé, has to do with the veneration of saints or pagan deities in the country of syncretisms that is Brazil.
Nevertheless, if the Brazilian player embodied in his flesh and his muscles the joys of popular sport par excellence, he was only the king. But a king whose influence has gone far beyond the football fields.
The Brazilian Ambassador
Pelé’s career coincides with the time when Brazil revealed itself to the world through its music and its artists, its footballers and also its agribusiness and its first large industrial groups. Certainly, the futuristic urbanism of Brasilia, the melancholic tunes of bossa nova had been obscured by the military coup of 1964. Pelé has also been criticized for having served the regime of General Emilio Garrastazù Medici without his knowledge, particularly during the third coronation Brazilian World Cup in 1970 in Mexico City. But the joy generated by this triumph somehow escaped government control.
The recital given on this occasion by Pelé, who showed all his technical, physical and tactical genius, both scorer and playmaker, went beyond the scope of football. The dance led by the Auriverde team expressed popular culture and joy freeing itself from dictatorship and censorship. As such, Pelé was also a hero of the Third World, particularly in Africa where tens of thousands of people from Dakar to Kinshasa via Abidjan and Libreville, had welcomed their hero by chanting ” The king ! The king ! » during the tour of his Santos club in May-June 1967.
Other than Mohammed Ali and Garrincha
While black American athletes raised a gloved fist on the Olympic podiums or Muhammad Ali poured out provocations, Pelé led a fight for racial equality in his own way in a country where slavery had only been abolished. in 1888. He knew how to capitalize on his sporting successes and did not end up in decline like his teammate Garrinchadied alcoholic and poor in 1983. On the contrary, without neglecting charitable commitments in favor of children, he knew how to combine sport and business at the end of his career at Cosmos New York, when he became one of the first black athletes to sign a sponsorship contract with Pepsi Cola (1974).
Pelé broke not only the glass ceiling of poverty but also that of power by becoming between 1995 and 1998, Minister of Sports. Not for the glory of being handed a portfolio but to cleanse the Augean stables of corrupt Brazilian football. He wanted to impose transparency and professionalism, particularly in terms of the contractual conditions of the players. The so-called Pelé law voted in 2000 was however watered down once morest the wishes of its promoter.
In any case, the trajectory of the latter who first succeeded where his father had failed, by becoming a professional footballer, before becoming a planetary star, businessman and minister, while leading a rather quiet family life (two marriages), constitutes a an example of life perfectly suited to a society marked by the evangelical ideology combining divine election and earthly successadopted today by many Brazilian professional footballers.
Pelé or nostalgia for another football?
The tribute to Pelé is universal, but the number of people who have seen him perform live is not that great, despite the increase in life expectancy. Pelé therefore owes a lot to television, in particular color and to the satellites which transmitted and then preserved the memory of his exploits of 1970. Before him, the exploits of a Di Stéfano, a Puskas or a Kopa had benefited less of the grace of the small screen.
But if the emotion mediated by the news channels following minute by minute the deeds and gestures of its admirers, while bringing back the tributes of the greats of this world, marks the encounter between the historical time shared by all and the temporality specific to each individual, it also plays on nostalgia for a time that would be over. In this case, the Pelé case would feed the illusion of a time when football was more a game, less a business, when the stars were accessible and close to the people. No doubt we must be careful not to give in too much to an illusory nostalgia.
Pelé played at a time when football was violent and football artists were less protected by referees. Santos’ tours were primarily aimed at filling the club’s coffers and his adventure at Cosmos New York had a lot to do with the emergence of sports business. As for the emergence of Brazil, it was also carried by his compatriot Joao Havelange, president of Fifa from 1974 to 1998, a very ambiguous apostle of globalization opening the Pandora’s box of some evils that affect football today. But Pelé’s legacy is elsewhere: with Brazilian football, the beauty of jubilant football and the journey of a man who knew how to overcome his condition and remain true to himself.
