Pelé

In 1969, with a civil war raging, global football's biggest star arrived in Benin City as part of a visit that would change Nigerian football forever. Those involved still remember the occasion vividly. "It was all about Pele. Before…

Being one of the very first young black sporting superstars of the television era, Pelé drew the love and affinity of Africans across the continent. As decolonisation movements swept across Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pelé…

The first global football superstar made everyone smile and his tricks were never designed to diminish his opponent. For the generation born just after the end of the second world war, the emergence of the teenaged Pelé during the 1958…