Pelé obituary

At this point in his life, money had become more pressing than football. As the result of bad judgment and dubious advice, he twice lost his fortune and was almost made bankrupt. One reason Santos were able to keep him for so long was their willingness to bail him out, on very favourable terms, after his business collapsed.

He played his last game for the club in October 1974 but, with financial clouds still hanging over him, he came out of retirement a few months later after receiving an offer he simply could not refuse. To the astonishment of football fans, particularly in Brazil, he went to play for New York Cosmos in the fledgling North American Soccer League (NASL). They would pay him $7m for three years as a player, plus another three as a "goodwill ambassador".

As well as a salary that would make him the highest-paid sportsman in the world, he was also tempted by the offer of a new challenge laid down by the Cosmos manager, Clive Toye, perhaps one that suited a footballer past his peak: "I told him don't go to Italy, don't go to Spain, all you can do is win a championship. Come to the US and you can win a country."

Over three seasons he scored 65 goals in 111 games for the Cosmos, and led them to the 1977 American championship. The team became a huge commercial presence and regularly sold out their 60,000-seater stadium - unthinkable before his arrival. His last game came in October 1977, an exhibition match in New York between his two clubs, Santos and Cosmos, broadcast to dozens of countries, in which he played one half for each side, and scored his last goal, his 1,283rd in 1,367 games. Those figures are remarkable in themselves, but the fact that more than 500 of those games were friendlies played all over the world is testament to his popularity and box office appeal.

When he retired for a second time, the winning smile and goodwill that had won over American sports fans became his stock in trade, and he went on to act as a highly paid roving ambassador for a number of organisations, from Fifa and the United Nations to Mastercard and Pepsi. He even headed a health campaign for erectile dysfunction awareness. Wherever he went, he was received like royalty.

In 1999 he was named athlete of the century by the International Olympic Committee (even though he had never appeared at an Olympic Games) and a year later (jointly with Diego Maradona) Fifa player of the century. He was vice-president of Santos and made honorary president of the revamped New York Cosmos in 2010. His honorary titles in many different countries included an honorary knighthood in the UK (1997).