Viking nets Downie’s biography of Pelé

Viking has acquired Epic: The Real Pelé And the Country, Culture and Colleagues That Made Him the Greatest Footballer o All Time by Brazilian football correspondent Andrew Downie.

Senior commissioning editor Shyam Kumar acquired world rights, excluding Spanish and Portuguese, from David Luxton at David Luxton Associates. The book will be published in hardback, e-book and audiobook in June 2026 to coincide with the FIFA World Cup taking place in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Its synopsis reads: “On 29th December 2022, at the age of 82, the world lost one of football’s shining lights: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known more affectionately as Pelé. Along with Muhammad Ali, he was the best-known sportsman of the 20th century.

“The raw numbers speak for themselves: he was the only player to win the World Cup three times; he was only 17 when he played for Brazil in the 1958 World Cup finals, scoring six goals in their last three games; and 12 years later he led what is still considered the greatest international team of all time to their third World Cup title in Mexico.

“He scored a record 1,281 goals throughout his career and at the New York Cosmos helped introduce “soccer” to the United States. What elevates Pelé beyond these stats, however, is how he played the sport. Pelé popularised the description of football as ’the beautiful game’ and no one played it with more style or joy than the man known throughout the world as ’the King’"

The publisher said Downie tells “the full story of Pelé” through the characters that populated his life and the events that shaped his existence. “It will be the first complete portrait of one of the greatest players ever to grace a football field,” Viking said.

Kumar said of the acquisition: “Any football fan, at some point, will have debated whether Pelé, Maradona or Messi are worthy of the title greatest footballer of all time. With Pelé, not all of what he accomplished was recorded – only half of his 1,281 goals are on tape – so it’s difficult to truly appreciate his greatness without thorough research. If understanding Pelé requires work, then Andrew Downie is a scholar. No one is better placed to tell the complete and definitive story of Pelé and his biography will be essential reading for any football fan who wants to have an informed opinion on Pelé’s legacy.”

Downie was a foreign correspondent in Brazil for 20 years and is the author of Doctor Socrates: Football, Philosopher, Legend (S&S UK) and The Greatest Show on Earth (Arena Sport), which was shortlisted for best football book at the 2022 Sports Book of the Year awards.

He said: “Pelé is without question one of the greatest and most recognisable names in the history of sport. He put Brazil on the map and over 12 short years helped transform his nation into the country of football. I’ve always thought it unfair that while other creative geniuses of the period, people such as Paul McCartney, Muhammad Ali, Charlie Chaplin and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, all got hefty biographies extolling their greatness, Pelé was never given the same honour.

“I hope to right that wrong with the book Epic and I’ve spent much of the last four years reading and researching what made Pelé special. My aim is to show why he was one of a kind, while at the same time painting pictures of the charismatic retinue around him, the players, coaches, friends and empresarios who helped make him one of most revered figures of the 20th century.”