[5] In the years preceding the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which would be hosted in the United States, interest in the sport within the country had increased.

[6] In April 1993, Accolade announced that it had signed exclusive licensing agreements with former Brazilian footballer Pelé and American ice hockey player Brett Hull to endorse and help design sports games for the SNES, Sega Genesis, and MS-DOS.

[7] To this end, Pelé worked alongside Canadian game developer Radical Entertainment and Accolade project manager Robert Daly.

[6] Alan Price programmed the game, while Philip Bat Tse and Edgar Bridwell served as lead artists.

Arnie Katz of Electronic Games praised the large and detailed players, realistic artificial intelligence, and intuitive controls.

[13] Athletic Supporter of GamePro appreciated the amount of options and deemed the graphics and audio to be above average (singling out the large player sprites and crowd noises respectively), but was frustrated by the penalty-filled gameplay, and he faulted the lack of an in-game clock.

[4] Deniz Ahmet of Computer and Video Games felt that the focus on options came at the expense of the gameplay, which he said was marred by sluggish controls and lack of character between teams.

as "an affront to the good name of soccer and the good name of Pelé"; while they acknowledged the large sprite size and fair amount of options, they derided the ropey controls and difficult goalkeepers, dismissed the music as "nauseating Hammond organ", and described the crowd sounds as "the spectators at a St Trinian's hockey match".

[1][2] A sequel, Pelé II: World Tournament Soccer, was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Accolade in June 1994.