Brazilian football legend Pele

Brazilian football legend Pele's daughters told his fans Sunday that their father's health was not at serious risk, expressing their confidence that he will return home when he recovers from a respiratory infection.

The 82-year-old has been hospitalized in Sao Paulo since Tuesday amid ongoing treatments for colon cancer, which was first diagnosed in September 2021.

Pele "is sick, he is elderly, but at this point he is hospitalized for a lung infection," Kely Arantes Nascimento, the legend's daughter, told the TV channel Globo.

"And when he gets better, he'll come home," she added.

"We are not saying goodbye in the hospital," Kely insisted, explaining that the respiratory illness was the result of a Covid-19 infection Pele had contracted three weeks ago.

Her sister, Flavia Arantes Nascimento, denied reports from the daily Folha de S.Paulo and ESPN Brazil that Pele was no longer responding to chemotherapy and was now receiving only "palliative care".

Flavia told the news channel that her father was not in the intensive care unit, but in a regular ward, stressing that the family was "tired of receiving condolences" and that the cancer treatment is "delivering results".

"It's really unfair that they're saying he's at the terminal stage. It's not that, believe us," she said.

Doctors at Sao Paulo's Albert Einstein Hospital said on Saturday that Pele remained "stable".

Pele "has had a good response to care without any worsening in the clinical picture in the last 24 hours," they said in a statement.

Later, the football legend posted an optimistic note on Instagram, saying, "My friends, I want to keep everyone calm and positive. I'm strong, with a lot of hope and I follow my treatment as usual."