Pelé: 'We have more information and yet racism keeps happening'

At 79, Pelé remains attentive to the events of the football world and society. In the week when two Brazilian players were compared to monkeys in Ukraine and an Atletico-MG fan offended a security guard at Mineirão because of their skin color, the King of Football spoke about the presence of racism and violence inside and outside the stadiums. .

“The sad thing now is that we already have more information and racism is still happening,” said the three-time world champion in an exclusive interview with VEJA at the Pelé Museum, in Santos, São Paulo coast. The star remembered when he was a Santos player and suffered from prejudice in the stands at Copa Libertadores games . “On our side here in Argentina, when Santos played there, there was that monkey thing, ' los monkeys de Brasil '. It always had. ”

Pelé also talked about another type of violence: social violence. Fernando Henrique Cardoso's former government minister lamented the fact that very young boys entered the criminal world by committing armed robberies and even murder. “It's worse than before. It seems that evildoers are not afraid of anything anymore. I did that song Recado ao Criança (listen to the song in the video below) because at the time I saw the problem only with children. Not now. There are 17, 18 year old boys killing, stealing. ”