When choosing his final resting place, King Pelé was original. Outstanding as a footballer, the Brazilian, who died on December 29 at the age of 82, chose a grave in his image: from this Tuesday, he must rest in the vertical cemetery of the city of Santos, the highest world according to the Guinness Book of Records.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, bought a funeral plot nineteen years ago in the Ecumenical Necropolis of the port city in southeastern Brazil, where he played for most of his legendary career. The three-time world champion said in 2003 that he wanted to rest there because he “didn’t look like a cemetery” and that he would bring him “spiritual peace and tranquility”reported the Brazilian press in recent days.
From the outside, the necropolis looks more like a grand hotel, with its 14 floors and white facade. But it offers 18,000 graves to accommodate the coffins of the deceased and a columbarium for the urns containing the ashes. Pelé’s body will rest in a 200 m² mausoleum specially designed for him, reminiscent of a football stadium, with its synthetic turf and photos of the King, according to a communication manager at the cemetery.
A future place of pilgrimage
According to the cemetery’s website, the mausoleums allow “to create decorated spaces” by relatives and “personalize family memory”. The funeral plot acquired by Pelé is on the first floor of the building. It is destined to become a place of pilgrimage, as more than 230,000 people filed past its coffin during the funeral wake on Monday and Tuesday, including some celebrities and newly invested President Lula.
The construction of the vertical cemetery – the first in the world to offer mausoleums – began in 1983 and it was inaugurated in 1991. The luxurious establishment designed by an Argentinian entrepreneur occupies a plot of four hectares and offers meditation rooms, suites rest, a 24-hour restaurant, a chapel, an automobile museum, an aviary and a pond with fish.
From the vertical cemetery, anyone who has come to pay homage to Pelé will be able to see, less than a kilometer away, the Vila Belmiro stadium of Santos FC, where the footballer built most of his legend. In this cemetery are also buried his daughter Sandra Arantes, who died of cancer in 2006, his brother Jair Arantes, known as “Zoca”, and former striker Antonio Wilson Honório, known as “Coutinho”, who played alongside Pelé in 1962 and 1963.
