DHAKA: The Brazil football legend Pelé has been moved into a special care unit in hospital in São Paulo, according to reports.

The 74-year old who won three World Cups during his glittering playing career was admitted to the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo on Monday with a urinary infection. He had an operation at the same hospital on 12 November to remove kidney stones and was discharged three days later.

On that occasion Pelé had been admitted with abdominal pains that forced him to cancel a book signing event in Santos, where he lives.

Tests showed that arguably the world’s greatest footballer was suffering from kidney and ureteral stones. “He is clinically stable and in recovery,” doctors said on his release from hospital on 15 November.

On Thursday Jose Fornos Rodrigues, the former player’s personal aide, said Pele was “completely fine” and the move was primarily to protect his privacy.

“He was uncomfortable with so many people coming. It’ll be quieter now,” Rodrigues said by telephone. A hospital spokeswoman declined to elaborate on Pele’s condition, but said he was not in intensive care.

However there are rising fears for the health of a player who became a global icon after first helping Brazil win the 1958 World Cup in Sweden aged just 17.

Pelé was also part of the side which retained the trophy four years later in Chile, and then the team who have often been thought of as the greatest ever, in 1970, who completed a hat-trick of World Cup triumphs for Brazil in Mexico.

Source: The Guardian

BDST: 2310 HRS, NOV 27, 2014