Inside Pele's abandoned mansion with football pitch taken over by nature

Daily Mirror

5 hours ago

Brazilian football legend Pele passed away in 2022, and his once-glorious beach-front mansion was found to be in a dilapidated state by YouTubers two years after his death
Content creators filmed the inside of Pele 's mansion following the football icon's death and found the property to be significantly run down. The Brazilian hero came to prominence in 1958 at just 17 years of age when he won his first of three FIFA World Cups with his nation.
The forward enjoyed a storied career as he spent 18 years with boyhood club Santos before embarking on a journey in the United States with the New York Cosmos where he retired in 1977.
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Pele became a worldwide ambassador for the sport and supported numerous charitable causes after his footballing career but fell seriously ill in 2021 when he was diagnosed with colon cancer.
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After undergoing treatment in the following months, he later died in December 2022 at the age of 82 with his cause of death being multiple organ failure, a complication of his previous cancer diagnosis.
The Santos icon's penultimate residence was a million-pound mansion on Pernambuco Beach in Guaruja that included a football field, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a bar.
It was in 2024 that the property was entered by influencer Lucas Wesley and two of his content creator friends.
Wesley – who posted the 90-minute video on TikTok in October 2024 which garnered over 2.5million views – said he was able to enter the property after finding the garage door slightly open.
The influencer reposted the footage he captured on Instagram earlier this month that led to his findings gaining attention on social media once again. He said he nobody had responded inside the property and found it to be empty.
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"Getting to know this place and seeing up close everything that once belonged to Pelé is indescribable," Wesley said.
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"For anyone who is a football fan and knows Pelé's history, they would certainly be moved by everything there, just as we were."
However, he admitted the poor state the property – which is under the control of Pele's son Edinho – had been left in caused him to feel emotional. "[It was] dirty and vandalised," he claimed. "For us fans, it leaves a truly sad feeling."
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In Wesley's footage, viewers were able to see the football pitch in the garden that was almost completely taken over by foliage while the swimming pool was ridden with algae, turning the water green.
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The property being labelled as abandoned is said to be incorrect, according to Edinho's lawyer, Augusto Miglioli, who said the property is not abandoned and is purely an inherited property from his father.
Part of the mansion was hidden by the undergrowth that looked to have remained uncut for a considerable amount of time. Rust was prevalent on the gates while cobwebs covered sections of the building.
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Miglioli had warned Wesley and his two friends that they "will be held civilly and criminally responsible".
According to lawyer Thyago Garcia, it is only when the owner of a property expresses a lack of interest in the controlling of the building can it be considered abandoned.
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"The mere deterioration, lack of maintenance, or even being unoccupied for a long period of time does not suffice to describe it as legally abandoned," Garcia explained.
He added that the ability to enter a property through unlocked doors or open windows does not warrant entry from a third-party without the consent of the owner.
"Possession and ownership are protected by law regardless of property condition," he continued.
The current state of the property is a far cry from it's previous look decades prior where Pele played host to parties at the mansion for friends and celebrities.