SAO PAULO: Pele remains under "observation" in a Brazilian hospital, his doctors said Thursday, describing the three-time World Cup winner as "clinically stable".

The latest update on the Brazilian football great's health comes a day after the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo said he would need an operation to remove a "ureteral stone".

The 78-year-old was admitted to the medical facility on Tuesday after he returned from France where he had spent six days in a Paris hospital for a urinary tract infection that required surgery.

Pele "remains clinically stable and in good health", the Sao Paulo hospital said.

"He has been medically evaluated and is still under observation."

Pele, who is widely considered to be the greatest footballer in history, was discharged late Monday from the private American hospital in the Paris suburbs where he had been taken after falling ill following an appearance at a promotional event with France striker Kylian Mbappe.

Pele, who won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958, 1962 and perhaps most memorably in Mexico in 1970 when his swashbuckling team re-defined modern football, has had several health scares in recent years.