Boys from Brazil locked in continuing combat

Teixeira did not invite him to the draw, the first major milestone on the way to the World Cup finals, but Pele was due to be there anyway after Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff appointed him as the country's international World Cup ambassador this week.

Pele, 70, said: "You only go to a party if you are invited. If I wasn't invited, it's logical I wouldn't go. He is president of the federation ... If he doesn't invite me, I don't go.

"There's always some confusion or misunderstanding when he (Teixeira] replies or gives an interview. I hope from now on we can clear everything up and we can work properly for the World Cup."

FIFA and the local organising committee, which Teixeira also heads, issued a statement saying they were pleased with Pele's new role, but contradicted his comments about not being invited.

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"Because of his importance in the history of football, he was called in April to be not only a guest of honour but mainly to accompany FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke on stage during the ceremony," the statement said.

"However, Pele responded to the invitation, by e-mail, saying he had other commitments on that date."

The animosity between Pele, widely regarded as the world's greatest player, and Teixeira has its roots in the early 1990s when Pele was critical of Teixeira's then father-in-law Joao Havelange, president of FIFA at the time.

Havelange snubbed Pele by not inviting him when the draw for the 1994 World Cup finals was made in Las Vegas in late 1993 but this time current FIFA head Sepp Blatter has stepped in as a possible peacemaker.

Blatter said he was planning to meet the outspoken Teixeira over remarks he had made against England and for snubbing Pele.

Teixeira, 64, a FIFA executive committee member who has been surrounded by controversy for years, recently accused the English of being "pirates", saying they "could go to hell".

On Friday he refused to talk to English journalists, calling them "corrupt" after a media scuffle involving his entourage.

Blatter told reporters that Teixeira's criticism of England was not good for FIFA's image. Blatter said: "Sure I will speak to him but I'm not the man responsible for the moral or ethical approach of members of FIFA or of the executive committee. I'm not their conscience.

"It is his responsibility, what he is doing.I am not so sure that all of that is in my spirit of fair play."

Teixeira is upset with the English after Lord Triesman, the former head of the English FA, accused him in a parliamentary inquiry of asking for a bribe in return for his vote for England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup finals.

A subsequent inquiry found no evidence for Triesman's allegation and FIFA cleared him of any wrongdoing. But Teixeira, in an interview with a Brazilian magazine last week, said he would make the lives of the English FA and the English media very difficult during the World Cup, if England qualified. Teixeira is also furious about allegations made by BBC's Panorama programme that he took bribes totalling nearly 6 million from collapsed FIFA TV rights company ISL in the 1990s.

These latest problems come at an awkward time for Blatter, who is attempting to clean up FIFA's image in the wake of bribery and corruption allegations against nine of his 24-man executive committee.

Teixeira, who at one point was married to Havelange's daughter, has been in charge of the CBF since 1989. He survived a congressional inquiry in 2001 which, in its report, accused him of negligent administration, mixing personal and football-related business and living in luxury at his organisation's expense.