The son of the Brazilian football legend Pele has been sentenced to 33 years in jail for laundering money raised from drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
Edinho is a retired footballer who played goalkeeper for Pele’s old club, Santos, in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
He was first arrested in 2005 and has served a sentence for drug trafficking offences and links with a notorious drug dealer in the city of Santos.<\/p>\n
He says he is a drug addict but denies the trafficking charges.<\/p>\n
The ruling was issued by a judge in the nearby coastal city of Praia Grande, in Sao Paulo state.<\/p>\n
Brazilian media have not been able to contact Edinho, whose real name is Edson Cholbi do Nascimento, but they say he is expected to appeal.<\/p>\n
Edinho, 43, works as a goalkeeping coach at Santos.<\/p>\n
US childhood<\/strong><\/p>\n Pele, or Edson Arantes do Nascimento, played all his professional career in Brazil for Santos.<\/p>\n Playing for Brazil, he won the World Cup in 1958, 1962 and 1970 and was acclaimed as the greatest footballer of his generation.<\/p>\n He retired in 1974, but made a comeback a year later for New York Cosmos.<\/p>\n Edinho is Pele’s third son from his first marriage. He was five when the family moved to New York to play for Cosmos.<\/p>\n When he returned to Brazil he decided to pursue a career in professional football – as a goalkeeper, much to his father’s surprise.<\/p>\n He was Santos’ goalkeeper in 1995 when the team reached the Brazilian league final, losing the title to Botafogo.<\/p>\n His detention and alleged involvement with drug gangs took most people in Brazil by surprise.<\/p>\n Pele, now 73, went to visit his son several times in jail.<\/p>\n “God willing, justice will be done. There is not a shred of evidence against my son,” he said in 2006.<\/p>\n Edinho said that his father was his idol.<\/p>\n Four other people have also been convicted for many laundering, including a man accused of controlling much of the drug trafficking in the region – Ronaldo Duarte Barsotti, known as Naldinho.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The son of the Brazilian football legend Pele has been sentenced to 33 years in jail for laundering money raised from drug trafficking. Edinho is a retired footballer who played goalkeeper for Pele’s old club, Santos, in the 1990s. He was first arrested in 2005 and has served a sentence for drug trafficking offences and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[29,1151,3,771,1150],"yoast_head":"\n