This Oct 17, 2020, handout screengrab taken from a video released by Pele's Press Office shows the Brazilian former football player Edson Arantes do Nascimento, know as Pele, speaking to the camera in Santos, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. (Joe FRAGA / Pele's Press Office / AFP)

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian football legend Pele has moved to reassure fans that he is feeling well following surgery to remove a tumor from his colon.

Friends, it's been a while since we talked about this. I want to let you know that I'm fine. I feel better every day ... I don't think even the mask for my protection can hide my happiness. Thank you very much to all of you who send me good energy daily.

Pele, former Brazilian soccer player

The 81-year-old was released from hospital on September 30, almost a month after the procedure at Sao Paulo's Albert Einstein hospital. Doctors said at the time that the former Santos and New York Cosmos star would undergo chemotherapy.

ALSO READ: Tributes flow as Brazil legend Pele turns 81

"Friends, it's been a while since we talked about this. I want to let you know that I'm fine. I feel better every day," Pele said on Twitter alongside a photo in which he raises a clenched fist while wearing a face mask.

"I don't think even the mask for my protection can hide my happiness. Thank you very much to all of you who send me good energy daily," he added, without providing details of the chemotherapy.

READ MORE: Ailing Brazilian soccer great Pele says getting 'closer to the goal'

The only player to have won the World Cup three times, Pele scored a world-record tally of 1,281 goals in a 1,363-match professional career that spanned 21 years. He was capped 91 times for Brazil and scored 77 international goals.