Throwback Thursday | PUMA King-Pelé - Football News

Throwback Thursday once again leads us to the SoccerBible archives and this time we've chosen with the PUMA King-Pelé. Specially commissioned by Puma and these boots were a replica of the 1970 King-Pele. 

In 1970 Pelé won his third World Cup final playing in Puma King football boots, a momentous occasion in football history and from that moment on the Puma football boot officially became known as the King Pelé. Along the way to winning his record third World Cup, Pele was also awarded ‘Player of the Tournament’ in Mexico.



The black leather upper with a yellow Formstripe, was a colourway that Puma pretty much made bespoke to the footballing legend. There were subsequent King releases featuring the black/yellow colourway serving as a tribute, such as the King XL. Not many brands can claim the greatest footballers of all time as previous wearers, so it was a nice touch making the colourway sinonimos with Pelé. 



It was 1970 when the PUMA King football boots were first brought to the worlds attention. Armin Dassler (PUMA) and his cousin, Horst Dassler (adidas), sealed an agreement, dubbed "The Pelé pact", agreeing not to persue Pele to wear one of their boots during the Mexico World Cup.

However, a PUMA agent secretly asked Pele to increase the profile of the brand and paid him to wear some PUMA Kings. Pele agreed and at the opening whistle of a match, stopped the referee with a last-second request to tie his shoelaces before kneeling down to give millions of television viewers a close-up of his Puma football Boots. 



Did you have a pair of PUMA King-Pele's? Let us know. Join the conversation online, on Twitter and on Facebook.