A social media post claiming that FIFA would keep the feet of legendary football player Pele in a museum is being shared widely. This came after the demise of Pele on 29 December 2022. Let’s fact-check this claim through his article.
Claim: FIFA will keep the feet of football player Pele in a museum display.
Fact: There are no news reports about such an announcement being made by FIFA. Even their website and the official Twitter handle do not mention any such information or a press release regarding this alleged decision. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To check the claim’s veracity, we looked for press releases and official announcements on the official website of FIFA and their Twitter handle. This search did not lead us to any relevant evidence. But FIFA posted a few articles mourning the death of the legendary player, which can be read here, here and here. We observed that the graphic in the viral post credited ‘TNT sports Brazil’ as the source of this information. We looked for an article about this alleged decision made by FIFA on their website, but they haven’t posted anything regarding the same.
Further, we looked for news reports about this on popular media outlets. However, none reported such information about FIFA deciding to keep Pele’s feet in a museum. News agency Reuters published a fact-check article on the same claim in which they said ‘A spokesperson for FIFA told Reuters via email that the claim is completely false.’ Pele’s footprints are preserved in the hall of fame at Maracana stadium in Brazil.
To sum up, FIFA is not planning to keep Pele’s feet in a museum; this news is fake.
