The day Pelé stopped a war in Africa to watch him play

"The only one to stop a war", says a banner in the Santos stadium, Vila Belmiro, since what happened in 1969. There are historians who still discuss this

, but anyone tells it to the fans, who also they sing in each game: "My Santos is sensational / Only Santos stopped the war / With Rei Pelé Bi (champion) World (Intercontinental) / The best team on earth".

Tours to make cash for football teams were not invented by any means in this century.

Santos already did them in 1969 precisely in countries where there was no money, and for the same reasons that a country today might want to hold a World Cup.

To begin with, Pelé did not stop one war, but two.

In 1968

a military coup in the Republic of the Congo.

The country lived under strong tensions, with purges on one side and attacks on the other, and it occurred to the dictator to reinforce his image by bringing the best team in the world.

The

of that team still talk about the tight security measures.

Banner in the Santos stadium that remembers they stopped a war.

Santos played three games.

In the first, in front of 90,000 spectators, they beat the Congolese national team 3-2, but the best anecdote of the trip was told by the journalist Gilberto Marques, from

the only one who attended the tour:

being immediately imitated by his teammates. Not knowing what to do, the referee stopped the game. And then they sent him a note from the stands: 'Santos de Pelé is here to give a show. If you don't apply the rules of the game, you go to jail.' The person who wrote and sent the note to the referee was none other than Marien Ngouabi".

But it was the party in Nigeria that fueled the fact that it stopped a war.

magazine

in 2005: "Although diplomats and emissaries had tried in vain for two years to stop the fighting in what was then the bloodiest civil war in Africa, the arrival in Nigeria in 1969 of Brazilian soccer legend Pelé brought

Both the government and the independent Republic of Biafra agreed to a truce to allow his team, Santos, to play two exhibition games against local teams Over 72 hours, football was more important than the war".

The military government of General Yakubu Gowon had been fighting for two years against the southeastern rebels who wanted to create the

A conflict that left

Pelé and the rest of the Santos players with the Nigerian authorities.

The country was not foreseen on the tour, but Santos was close and Gowon was

for the Santos board of directors, who decided to send Pelé and his teammates there.

The president's idea, like that of Ngouabi in the Congo, was to convey a sense of normality, and that was the case, since there were no altercations during Pelé's stay.

In his 2007 autobiography, the caption noted: "Of course the Nigerians made sure the Biafrans didn't invade Lagos while we were there."

He remembers "a huge military presence in the streets" and the protection by the army and the police during his stay.

He also says that the commercial director of Santos assured them that

and would not pose a problem for the authorities.

Santos played before

But the truth is that the armed conflict continued in other areas of the country.

And that after the departure of Pelé the war continued for another year.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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