Rio de Janeiro state legislature voted to change Maracana stadium to Edson Arantes do Nascimento – Rei Pelé stadium.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento is the 80-year-old’s full name, while Rei means king in Portuguese and Pele his nickname.
He got his nickname from his classmates as a result of pronouncing the name of the local Vasco da Gama goalkeeper Bile as Pile.
BBC reports the Rio de Janeiro’s state governor will have to approve the name change before it becomes official.
Pele won three World Cups as a player for Brazil, and scored his 1,000th goal at the stadium in 1969 when playing for Santos against Vasco da Gama.
Maracana held the 1950 and 2014 World Cup finals, as well as the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics with more than 78,838 current capacity.
It was named after Mario Filho, a journalist who lobbied for its construction in the 1940s, but was known as the Maracana after the area in which it is located, now to be named after Pele, as we await the final approval of the state government.
