Pele has turned down an invitation from Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane to appear in a United Nations fundraising match in Basel, Switzerland next Monday.

The 63-year-old Brazilian legend's spokesman said on Wednesday that Pele was flattered at being asked to play but was committed that day to filming the final scenes in a film about his life which is due to be released in March.

"There is definitely no way he can play," spokesman Jose Fornos Rodrigues told the Terras website.

Zidane had joked that Pele "didn't have to play long" in the match.

The France superstar and his Real Madrid teammate Ronaldo will captain the opposing teams in the friendly, a sell-out with all 30,000 seats at the Jokob Park stadium already snapped up, which is being staged to raise funds to finance UN projects to help the poor in Africa, Asia and south America.