Thousands of mourners braved punishing heat to pay their final tribute to footballing legend Pelé on Monday as the president of Fifa said he would ask every member country to name a stadium after the recently deceased Brazilian player.

Fans lined up outside the 106-year-old Vila Belmiro ground in Santos – the city in south-eastern Brazil where Pelé first made his name as a star goal scorer in the 1950s – overnight and at about 10am mourners began filing past the coffin that had been placed under a shaded tent in the middle of the field.

Family members, including Pelé’s widow, Marcia Aoki, and sons Edinho and Joshua, as well as dozens of friends and former teammates, stood over the open coffin, some of them weeping.

There will be a procession through the streets of Santos to a private family burial on Tuesday.

"We're going to ask every country in the world to name one of their football stadiums with the name of Pele," said Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who attended the memorial.

Brazil's government declared three days of national mourning after Pele's death.

Pele, arguably the world's greatest ever player, had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer since 2021.