Why has Pele never played for a European club?
Pele played professionally for Santos for nearly two decades (1956-1974), before playing for the New York Cosmos in the later years of his career (1975-1977). He was pursued by many big teams in England, Spain and Italy, but all turned them down.
"A lot of times Real Madrid came close to owning me, so did Napoli," Pele said in 2016 to USA Today. "Juventus and Man Utd also tried to bring Pele out of Brazil, but they both failed. I have no regrets. I wanted to stick with Santos. At that time, Santos was the force of the football village."
Pele also shared that he spent nearly the best 20 years of his life in Santos and did not want to change. Another reason is believed to have influenced Pele's failure to come to Europe to play football. In 1961, then-President of Brazil, Janio Quadros, used his power to push the Parliament to introduce a law that considers Pele a "national treasure" for 10 years, in order to prevent Pele from going abroad to play football.
Before that, in 1958, Inter Milan came close to owning Pele's signature. When the contract was about to be completed, Brazilian football fans pressured and threatened the then president Angelo Moratti of the Italian team. This information was shared by striker Ronaldo Nazario and Massimo Moratti himself, Angelo's son, later shared with the press. "My father tore up the contract with Pele, it was an act of conscience," said Massimo Moratti, former Inter president.
Pele revealed he was very close to Juventus, through wishing Cristiano Ronaldo 2018. "Good luck, Cristiano, in the first match against Juventus", he wrote on social networks. "If things had turned out differently, I would have worn this shirt too. During a dinner in 1961, the owner of FIAT once offered to pay a million dollars for Santos to let me go to Juventus."
In 1975, Pele just left Brazil to go to the US to play for the New York Cosmos. At the time, he was 34 years old and out of action for eight months, but was still signed to a three-year, $2.8 million contract. Pele was the highest-paid athlete at the time. His last game for Cosmos was against his former team Santos.
"Football King" Pele, who won the World Cup three times and is considered the greatest player of all time, died on December 29 at the age of 82 due to "multiple organ failure" after a long battle with the disease. cancer. He holds the scoring record with 1,281 goals in 1,363 games, and will always be remembered for revolutionizing football, making it the king sport.
