Scottish football to honour Pele ahead of new year fixtures

Scottish football fans are set to get the chance to pay tribute to Pele before the new year fixtures.

The Scottish Professional Football League has written to clubs suggesting a minute’s applause or “other appropriate gesture” is made to remember the Brazil great prior to games on Saturday and Monday.

Pele, who died aged 82 in hospital in Sao Paulo on Thursday, played for Brazil in a 1-1 draw with Scotland at Hampden in June 1966.

Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the SPFL, said: “Scottish football fans appreciate skill, class and achievement, and no player in the game better typified those qualities than Pele.

“Arguments will rage forever about who is the greatest player but, for his sheer impact on the worldwide game and his achievements in winning three World Cups, it’s doubtful we will ever see his like again.

“To be able to look out over the national stadium and realise that this global icon graced the Hampden turf during a friendly with Scotland in 1966 is a humbling experience.

“Everyone who appreciates all that is good about football – from his incomparable goal-scoring prowess, his outrageous skill and his simple, overwhelming joy at playing the game – will recognise just what gap the great man’s passing has left.”

Pele and his Brazil team-mates spent time in Ayrshire around their Hampden friendly and ahead of the 1966 World Cup, training at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park and Troon Juniors’ Portland Park grounds.

Kilmarnock stated on Thursday that they were “saddened” to hear about the death of “one of our sport’s all-time greats”.

A brief statement added: “Pele graced the Rugby Park turf alongside the Brazil squad in 1966, in a visit that will always be treasured by the club.”

Troon added that they were “desperately saddened” by the news.

They said: “Arguably the greatest player to have ever played the game, and certainly the greatest to ever have graced Portland Park.”

The former Santos and New York Cosmos player, who scored 77 international goals for Brazil, received an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh 10 years ago.

University principal Peter Mathieson said: “The University of Edinburgh was greatly saddened to hear of Pele’s passing.

“Many in the University community have fond memories of a joyous event, held in London in 2012, when we awarded Pele an honorary degree in recognition of his significant contribution to humanitarian and environmental causes, as well as his sporting achievements.

“As my predecessor, Sir Timothy O’Shea, said at the award ceremony: ‘Pele is one of the foremost sporting figures of our age – synonymous with footballing brilliance and elan – and someone who has devoted time and energy to countless charitable causes throughout the world’.”

Pele had previously returned to Scotland for the FIFA Under-16 World Cup in 1989, before Saudi Arabia beat Craig Brown’s host team in the final.

The three-times World Cup winner met young footballers at Hampden and grounds such as Aberdeen’s Pittodrie Stadium and Dens Park in Dundee.

His final visit to Scotland came in 2016 when he attended an ‘Evening with Pele’ event in a hotel in Glasgow.

Beforehand Pele attended a media conference where he passed on advice to budding young Scottish footballers.

“My father was a good centre forward, he is the record scorer with his head in Brazil with five goals in one game,” he said. “His name was Dondinho.

“He used to tell me, ‘Listen, you never, never think you are the best and you know everything’.

“You always have to do better. Never think you know everything, that was the advice I got from my father and I pass that on to young players today.”