He is considered the greatest footballer of all time and was the highest paid athlete in the world at his peak. Even after his retirement, Pelé’s net worth at the time of his death at age 82 after a brief battle with colon cancer was millions of dollars in endorsements (including a huge paycheck to tie his shoes, more on that later).
Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on October 23, 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil, he earned the nickname Pelé after mispronouncing Bilé, a goalkeeper who played for Vasco de Gama in his childhood. Growing up, his family was so poor they couldn’t afford soccer, so Pele used a grapefruit or rolled-up socks filled with newspapers to practice. His father was his first coach and his first football team was founded with a group of friends from his neighborhood who called themselves “the Shoeless,” according to Goal.com. He would rise to become one of the most transformative figures in sport of the 20th century, achieving a level of fame few athletes have achieved and a substantial fortune to boot.
What was Pelé’s net worth?
At the time of his death, Pelé’s net worth was around $100 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, but most of the money was made after his football career. He made his professional debut at Santos FC in 1956 at the age of 15 and scored in his very first game. The following year he was the top scorer in the entire Brazilian professional league. He was quickly called up to the Brazil national team and at 17 became the youngest player to attend and win a FIFA World Cup in 1958. They won again in 1962 and 1970.
Image: George Tiedemann/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images.
By the late ’60s, competition between sportswear brands Adidas and Puma had become so fierce that they actually signed a sort of peace treaty, an unspoken deal now known as the “Pelé Pact,” in which both companies agreed not to sign it sponsoring because they thought they would spend so much in a bidding war that the end result wouldn’t be worth it.
But at the 1970 World Cup final against Italy, just before kick-off, Pele asked the referee to pause so he could tie his sneakers. All eyes were on the greatest footballer of all time and his boots. Puma shoes. According to Barbara Smit in her book Sneaker Wars, Pelé was paid $120,000 just to tie his shoes and would make $100,000 over the next four years, plus a cut in sales of Pelé-branded sneakers.
In the 18 years that he played for Santos, he scored 643 goals and won five domestic, twelve regional and three international club championships. Interestingly, despite many offers, Pelé would never play for a major football club like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Milan, and after coming out of retirement in 1974 he signed with the New York Cosmos to play the following year.
Contrary to modern times, there wasn’t a lot of money in football, but Pele is said to have been paid a sizable sum of $2.8 million a year ($8.4 million in total, or more than 1.5 million dollars) for the three years he played at Cosmos 46 million dollars). in 2022), according to Sportico, making him the highest-paid athlete in the world. “Football was just getting started in the United States, and my friend Steve Ross, the president of Warner Communications, wanted to help,” he explained in a 2014 interview with Harvard Business Review. “They called me and I said ‘OK’ because it was different than playing in Europe. It came back to promote football in this country.”
His enormous paycheck wasn’t popular with everyone. An op-ed by the New York Times sports editor at the time argued, “It just seems morally unacceptable to pay a soccer player or other athlete figure over $4 million.” In response to the op-ed, one reader wrote that they “should go further ; no one in the President of the United States, nor anyone with any business or occupation, is worth that amount, and many are not worth the inflated salaries they receive.”
Image: George Tiedemann (Photo by George Tiedemann / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set #: D21595)
Another reader wrote: “I think it’s wrong to give Pele $4 million for the Cosmos not only because of the New York money crisis, but also because I think it’s wrong to give $4 million to an established Brazilian soccer star, to leave Brazil and play in the United States when there are so many good American boys just waiting to be discovered in American colleges.” (SIDE: LOLing on “good American boys”). However, one reader supported the move. “Pele has evidently demonstrated more effectively than many Americans that talent and skills are marketable assets and that our system of free enterprise is built on the principle of capitalizing on our talents and skills,” they wrote.
In fact, it matches the football legend’s own feelings. He believed modern athletes deserved their high salaries, but argued that there were big differences between some players and others. “Football is not a normal job where you can work until you are 80,” he said. “The good players, even the best in the world, can only play to 34, 35, 40 at most. But then they have to live. The problem is how the money is being spent. Now, with TV and sponsors, some teams and players are earning big; nothing else.” His recruitment to New York worked, because 75,000 fans crowded into New York’s Giants Stadium for his last game against Santos.
He elaborated on this point in an interview with Britain’s GQ in 2018, when asked if he agreed to a move from Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain. “It’s a different life now. I can’t compare it to my time when I was playing. What I would say is that there are maybe only two or three players in the world worth that much money right now,” he said. “In my day there were two or three players on each team! There was Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Johan Cruyff, Pelé, Eusebio, Zico, Georgie Best. Now you have a Neymar. A Cristiano Ronaldo. A Messi. And that’s it.”
Times thereafter were very different indeed, and Pelé’s considerable fortune came after his final retirement in 1977, with notable endorsements from brands such as Puma, Volkswagen, Emirates and Hublot, among others. “When a company approaches me, the first thing I think about is what message it’s sending to the kids,” he told Harvard Business Review of how he chooses brands to work with. “I get a lot of suggestions for commercials for cigars, alcohol and beer. A lot of coaches and players do that. But I will never support these brands because they are not good for young people.”
Image: Getty Images
In 1992, Pelé was named UNESCO Champion of Sport for helping underprivileged children and promoting sport. In 2001, he was accused of involvement in a corruption scandal that stole $700,000 from UNICEF. His marketing company, Pelé Sports and Marketing, borrowed money for a UNICEF benefit game that didn’t take place and the money was not returned. Pelé ordered an audit, shut down the company, and sued his partner for $4 million in embezzlement. Nothing has ever been proven. “It’s been going through my whole life and I have a big problem with partners,” he said at the time, according to the New York Times. In 2016, when the World Cup was being held in Pelé’s home country of Brazil, many brands signed him up as their ambassador.
In an interview with Britain’s GQ, Pele opened up about his career and said he has a “big responsibility” to fans. “Most of the kids are watching today [Lionel] Messi, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Neymar, but they also know the name Pelé,” he said. “Perhaps from their fathers, or from their fathers’ fathers! But it’s a big responsibility for me because I can never make a mistake in my life. I must always be a role model for these children, but I thank God for this honor.”
On December 29, 2022, the world would learn of the death of football’s greatest player, arguably one of the greatest sports stars of all time. Pelé died after a brief battle with colon cancer after having a tumor removed in 2021. Rest in power, legend.
Image: Penguin Publishing Group.
To learn more about Pelé, read his 2015 memoir, Why Soccer Matters: A Look at More Than Sixty Years of International Soccer. The book takes readers through Pelé’s 20-year international football career, from his three world titles to his record-breaking 1,283 goals. The autobiography also looks at Pelé’s decision to retire from football in 1977, his work as a global ambassador for international football and how he inspired future generations of professional footballers such as Neymar, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. “In my heart I know football has been good for me and great for the world… I have watched time and time again as the sport has improved countless millions of lives, both on and off the field. That’s why soccer is so important, at least for me,” writes Pelé in Why Soccer Matters.
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