But still bigger in Brazil

Everybody follow me to the nearest W.H Smith
 

If buying that Neymar doll hasn't used up all of your disposable cash, assuming of course you weren't successful in a bid for the donkey on the skyscraper, how about spending $1,700 on a 15kg autobiography of a genuine Brazilian footballing legend. Of course a book weighing that much will need a hefty coffee table on which to display it, probably one crafted from the finest wooden pallet available.

Anyway the 500-page limited edition is titled "1283", the number of goals Pele scored in his career, and comprises 1283 texts. If you don't think that $1,700 is a sufficiently expensive sum to spend on the life story of a three times World Cup winner why not shell out a further $1,000 and get that special, exclusive, really one-off, extra limited edition - the extra time and penalties of limited edition books. Rumour has it, and this isn't a joke, that as well as including a signed photograph of the man himself the extra special edition will include a square from one of Pele's football shirts soaked in the great mans sweat. Quite how you can confirm the provenance of a sweat stained shirt without going to the great man himself and rubbing him up and down a couple of times with a copy of Charlie Buchan's football monthly is anybody's guess.

The sweaty shirt rumour reminds me of one of my favourite footballing quotes courtesy of David Platt, " I swapped shirts with an opponent after every match," he said. "They all stank of sweat - except Franco Baresi's. That one smelled of Aramis!"

p.s Is it me or does that look like Gennaro Gattuso helping carry Pele from the field in 1970? Time travel eh!