On December 30 last year (hereinafter Korean time), local media reported that the legacy left by the late “emperor of football” Pele to his family is estimated at at least 100 million dollars (about 126 billion of won).
According to 2 Brazilian media, Pelé’s legacy to his grieving family is reported to be between $100 million and $115 million. Born in 1940, Pelé began his professional career in 1956 and played for 21 years until his retirement in 1977. At the age of 17, as a member of the Brazilian national team, he reached the top of the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, and won the title of ‘Emperor of Football’ by leading the team to victory at the 1962 World Cup in Chile and the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.
Pele, the biggest soccer star of his time, received an annual salary of $4.5 million in 1975 when he joined the New York Cosmos, which was in the middle of a soccer wasteland at the time. At the time, it was the highest salary in American sports. Brazilian media explained: “Pele’s annual salary at Cosmos jumped to $6 million before retirement” and “Pele has amassed enormous wealth while receiving the best treatment in the world.”
However, Pele said in an interview in 2020: “I didn’t get rich making money from football like today’s football players. After his retirement, he made far more money than he made as a footballer through advertising. There were so many ad deals, but I never did any ads related to cigarettes, alcohol or politics.
Pele diligently invested the money he earned in real estate. He sold a home he bought in the Hamptons for $156,000 in 1979 for $2.85 million in 2018 and made huge profits by holding the invested properties for a long time.
Local media quoted Argentine Diego Maradona, who was Pele’s rival, and said: “Unlike Maradona, who did not leave a large legacy compared to his fame, Pele left an inheritance of at least $100 million and up to $115 million to his family through diligent management is gone,” he said.
The legacy left by Pele is passed on to his wife and children. Pele’s wife is Marcia Aoki, 25 years his junior, who got married in 2016 and remained by her side until the end. The couple had no children, but Pele had six children from his two previous marriages. He had a child out of wedlock, which Pele hasn’t admitted to, but he died at the age of 42 after a battle with cancer.
Local press reported that “the six children born to his first and second wives actively communicated with Pele’s fans telling them about their father’s current situation and illness through social media and supported Pele, who was battling cancer, until the end”.
Donga.com reporter Song Chi-hun sch53@donga.com
