74 Year Old Soccer Super Star Pelé Suffering from Infection
SAO PAULO – BRAZIL – Brazilian soccer great Pelé has been transferred to a quieter wing of a Sao Paulo hospital where he’s being treated for a urinary tract infection.
A former aid of his says he was transferred because he had been swarmed by visitors and wanted to privacy.
The Brazilian soccer legend, age 74, had been transferred to a special care unit for “clinical instability,” the Albert Einstein Hospital said.
He was also in the hospital earlier this month to remove kidney stones.
Pelé is renowned as the greatest soccer player of all time. Pelé is the only footballer in history to have won three World Cups.
Pelé scored a world record total of 1,281 goals in 1,363 games during his twenty-one-year career. The Fifa Player of the Century won 91 caps for Brazil and scored 77 goals.
Pelée made 14 appearances at World Cup finals, scoring 12 goals, and picked up the the Fifa Golden Ball award as the best player at the 1970 tournament. In 1999, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS).
The same year, France Footballasked their former Ballon d’Or winners to choose the Football Player of the Century; they selected Pelé. In 1999, Pelé was elected Athlete of the Century by the IOC, and Time named him in their list of 100 most influential people of the 20th century. In 2013 he received the FIFA Ballon d’Or Prix d’Honneur in recognition of his career and achievements as a global icon of football.
