11 May 2011

Pelé Museum planned for 2012 opening

The city of Santos, Brazil plans to open the Pelé museum in 2012.

Pelé joined Santos when he was 15 years old in 1956, and stayed til 1974. He is regarded by many as the greatest player ever, with three World Cup wins and massive goal-scoring statistics.
It was reported some years ago that the city of Santos was set to establish a Pelé museum. To follow up on this information I got in touch with the city of Santos.

The ambition of Santos city hall back in 2010 was to launch two projects to create jobs and boost the economy as well as tourism. One of which was the Pelé Museum.

The location of the Museum will be in the neighbourhood of Valongo, currently a poor part of Santos that is facing great problems. However, the municipality has confirmed a large budget for the refurbishment of the whole district of Valongo.
As for the Pelé Museum, the budget of $20 million is covered by the Government of São Paolo state, the Ministry of Culture and other private contributions.

One unique feature of the museum will be an artful sculpture in Pelé's honour created by the legendary architect, Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, now aged 103!

The aim is to attract many tourists that will go to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014

Thanks to Mariana Munayer, Head of Tourist Information, City of Santos

The picture: Pelé and Oscar Niemeyer with an image of the planned sculpture, at a press conference in november 2010, Rio de Janeiro

Read more on the City of Santos' web
Read more about Pelé and Oscar Niemeyer here (with pics) and here

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