Press Trust of India
Kolkata, Oct 12: Football legend Pele stated here Monday that he has no intention to head FIFA, which is grappling with an unprecedented corruption scandal which has led to the suspension of its president Sepp Blatter and UEFA chief Michael Platini.
“No, I don’t have any intentions to be president of FIFA,” said the king of football, Pele, the only footballer to have won three World Cups, said in his first news conference during his one-week sojourn in India.
On to the game outside FIFA’s boardroom, Pele termed Argentine forward Lionel Messi as the ‘best in last 10 years’, but also spoke highly of fellow Brazilian Neymar and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
“It’s very difficult to make a comparison of players of different generations. But in the last 10 years Messi has been the best. Ronaldo plays forward and tries to score while Messi plays with a different style. In my team I would love to have both… We have Neymar who also has good future,” Pele pointed out.
The 74-year-old agreed that the sport has become highly competitive, but Pele said he would also have been successful had he played in this generation.
“No doubt football today is tougher than before but when God gifts you to play football it’s the same in any generation. Football is all about skill. I’m sure Messi would have been equally successful had he played in the earlier era,” the world’s all-time best footballer stated.
Post-World Cup where they were thrashed 1-7 by Germany, the once heavyweights Brazil may not be the same force to reckon with and Pele blamed it on the team atmosphere.
“We have not lost passion for football. We have the best players for Brazil but unfortunately, we don’t have time to prepare the team,” Pele said. “Club football seems to be more important to the players, these days. Agents are more important to the players than their countries. So even though we have the best players we don’t gel as a side. That has affected our performances,” he lamented.
