Clive Toye, general manager of New York Cosmos, was instrumental in convincing Pele to play football in the United States.
He told BBC World Service's Sporting Witness programme how he managed to persuade the greatest player in the world to end his career playing "soccer".
"It took four years," he explains. "My strategy was to tell him he was the person who could break through the crust of indifference in the US - nobody else could do it.
"I knew Juventus and Real Madrid wanted him so I said: 'If you go there, you can win a championship, if you come to America, you can win a country.' I liked that line then and I like it now."
“The impact was absolutely immediate,” he explained to BBC World Service’s Sporting Witness programme.
“It was not just in New York where we went from 5,000 a game to 28,000, then moved to the Yankee Stadium and had 48,000 and then the Giants Stadium and were getting 80,000.
“Everyone suddenly wanted to televise the games and on a Tuesday, every school in the area would close to come and see him training. That was the impact he had.
“He changed the whole thing!”