Soccer legend Pelé may be cheering on his native Brazil in the 2014 Fifa World Cup, but the Cosmos star says he still considers himself a New Yorker.
The 73-year-old icon told us, “When I joined the Cosmos, I became part of New York and I am still part of New York. I have had an apartment on 54th and Second Avenue in New York since 1974. I still live there. Every summer I come to New York.”
He said his two daughters live in the city, and he keeps a house in East Hampton. “There it is more calm. I am half in Brazil and half in New York, so I never see the winter.
“When I first moved to the city with the Cosmos, I used to have a soccer clinic in Central Park, but I can’t do that now because so many people approach me, but for that I am very blessed.”
Pelé was even asked to join the New York Giants, but turned down the job as a kicker. He told Page Six, “I still remember once, Joe Namath asked me if I have ever thought of kicking field goals in the NFL. My answer to him is that I cannot score any goals with a helmet on.”
Pelé appeared at Romero Britto’s Miami art studio as the official ambassador for Swiss watch maker Hublot, the “Official Timekeeper of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.” He said, “It is a very big responsibility for Brazil to host the World Cup, and everyone wants our team to win.”
He remains the Cosmos’ honorary president, and says he welcomes the plan to start the New York City Football Club, which will play its inaugural MLS season at Yankee Stadium in 2015.
And of David Beckham’s bid to start an MLS franchise in Miami, Pelé says, “I came here with the Cosmos . . . and now you have a player like Beckham doing the same, and it is fantastic . . . I think it will do well, not only in Miami, but the whole United States. I am happy because I feel I was part of it.”
And after CNN incorrectly tweeted he was dead in March, he said, “My family was calling me in a panic. I said, ‘People can say Pelé is dead, but Edson (his real name) is alive.’ ”