The Danish capital city of Copenhagen, which is bidding to host the World Masters Games in 2009, was this week boosted by the news that Pele, possibly the greatest ever footballer, is endorsing the bid – and he even hinted that he might come out of retirement if Copenhagen is awarded the Games!

On a recent return visit to Denmark, Pele was pictured beside the city’s iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbour. ‘I love this city and have so many friends here. It is this city’s peaceful tranquility and the people’s love of sport that continues to draw me back. I cannot think of a better place to host the World Masters Games. Who knows, if the Games come here I might even be forced out of retirement!’

Copenhagen’s bid, along with the bids of Sydney, Australia and Shiga Prefecture, Japan will be carefully examined this coming weekend, when the Board of Governors of the International Masters Games Association (IMGA) meet in Edmonton, Canada, to decide on the host city for 2009. They will announce their decision on Sunday June 13.

The last World Masters Games were held in Melbourne, Australia in 2002 and the next will be hosted by Edmonton (2005). Over 25,000 competitors from 98 countries took part in 26 sports at the last Games in Melbourne.

Lars Bernhard Joergensen, the CEO of the Copenhagen bid said ‘Pele is a great friend of our city and a regular visitor and we are very grateful for the great man’s support of our bid. We firmly believe that should this huge multi-sport international Masters event come back to Europe in 2009 then Copenhagen will be able to attract competitors from more than 125 countries. We are ideally positioned at the heart of the newly expanded Europe and we look forward to being given the chance to host our friends from all the new countries of Europe at what would be the biggest single sporting event to be hosted by Copenhagen this decade. May the best bid win’

For further information contact:

Copenhagen 2009 WMG
Project Manager
Lars Vallentin, lvc@woco.dk
+45 3325 7400

For further information on the World Masters Games, go to
www.imga-masters.com