It’s the final resting place for “The King”: Six months after the death of the man widely regarded as the greatest footballer of all time, Brazil unveiled Pele’s gilded, football-turfed tomb on Monday opened to the public.
Pelé, who died on 29 December after a battle with cancer at the age of 82, was buried at the Universal Memorial Cemetery in Santos, Brazil. It is a towering, 14-story mausoleum that holds the Guinness World Record for the tallest cemetery on Earth.
Fans were greeted by two life-size golden statues of the player nicknamed “O Ray” – The King – whose remains are kept inside a large golden vault displayed in the middle of a 200-square-metre (2,000-plus-square-foot) . feet) The room is carpeted in artificial turf.
“It exceeded my expectations. It’s a really beautiful place,” said Ronaldo Rodrigues, 44, a businessman who was first in line to visit the mausoleum with his wife.