The Brazilian champion Pele is still hospitalized since Tuesday, November 29, said his two daughters on Sunday, December 4, and that his health condition did not present any “risk.” The two daughters were optimistic about his return home.

King Pele “is sick, he is old, but at the moment he is in hospital with a lung infection. And when he gets better, he will come home,” said his daughter Kely Nascimento, in an interview with Brazilian broadcaster Globo.

The contraction of the COVID-19 virus triggered a lung infection.

However, “he is not in an intensive care unit; he is in a normal room. He is not at risk. He is under treatment,” added his sister Flavia Arantes.

King Pele was admitted on Tuesday 29 November to Albert-Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo for a re-evaluation of his treatment for colon cancer. His respiratory infection is being “treated with antibiotics,” doctors said at the time.

The hospital said on Saturday that his condition was “stable” and that he was responding well to treatment for his respiratory infection. The hospital’s communications department made the same observation on Sunday, 4 December.

On Saturday, King Pele, 82, said that he felt “strong and hopeful.”

His two daughters also denied rumours of a deterioration in his health on Sunday, 4 December.

“We are tired of receiving condolences,” Flavia Arantes told Globo TV.