Pele Named Global Ambassador For Emirates Airlines In Dubai Ceremony

Officials from UAE Pro-League football club Al Nasr presented PELE "with a framed photo of him playing against the team" for his former club Santos in 1973, on the sidelines of a function that saw him announced as a global ambassador for Emirates airline in Dubai, according to Ashley Hammond of GULF NEWS. Al Nasr Team Manager MOHAMMAD AL QAHOOR said, "This generation probably doesn’t know who Pele was. But we know him as a good friend of the club from a time when we brought all the big teams out to the UAE, including Liverpool and Aston Villa" (GULF NEWS, 1/16). GULF NEWS' Euan Reedie reported journalists in Dubai "tend to be blase about top sport stars visiting the emirate." But the revelation that "The King of Football," Pele, was to be in town on Thursday for an Emirates airline announcement -- only the third time he has visited the city -- "created an unprecedented buzz among the Dubai sports journalism fraternity" (GULF NEWS, 1/16).