Pele is buried at the tallest vertical cemetery in the world

Pele was a unique football player, and so will be his final resting place: a large replica stadium with fake grass inside the world’s largest vertical cemetery.

The legendary Brazilian football player, who passed away last week at the age of 82, had a funeral on Tuesday. Nineteen years ago, he bought his mausoleum in the Memorial Ecumenical Cemetery, which is a real high-rise and holds the Guinness World Record for being the tallest cemetery on Earth.

The cemetery, which is situated in Santos, the southeast port city where “The King” spent the majority of his illustrious career, is 40,000 square metres (430,000 square feet) in size and includes a 24-hour restaurant, a church, an auto museum, a small fish pond, and an aviary.

According to a representative for the cemetery, Pele’s 200 square-meter mausoleum, which is located on the first level, will be arranged to resemble a football stadium, with his embalmed body lying in a coffin on exhibit in the centre of the synthetic turf, surrounded by gilded pictures from his heyday.

Pele’s true name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, and he has been outspoken about where he wants to be buried. In 2003, he said he loved the location because it “doesn’t appear like a cemetery” and offered him a sense of “spiritual calm and tranquilly.”

Jose Salomon Altstut, a late Argentine industrialist, came up with the idea for the stunning white structure and started construction in 1983.

It was formally opened in 1991 and includes a total of 18,000 grave spaces. It was the first vertical cemetery to do so worldwide.

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Customers are able to “build a decorated space” in their mausoleums, which can even include en-suite rest spaces for mourners, according to the cemetery’s website.

Pele’s late father, aunt, brother, and daughter are already buried there, along with Antonio Wilson Honorio, better known as “Coutinho,” who was a 1960s colleague of his at Santos FC.

The cemetery is only a short distance from Santos’ Vila Belmiro stadium, where 15-year-old Pele first wowed the world before going on to set a record of 1,281 goals in his career and become the only player in history to win three World Cups.

VOA