Johannesburg, June 3 (DPA) South Africa’s revered former president Nelson Mandela, 91, will attend the opening game in the football World Cup next week, a local newspaper quoted the country’s sports minister as saying.
The announcement follows months of uncertainty over whether the elderly statesman, who played a central role in South Africa’s bid to become the tournament’s first African host, would attend the kick-off.
The frail leader has restricted his public appearances in recent years.
South Africa face Mexico in the opening game at Soccer City in Johannesburg.
Business Day quoted Minister Makhenkesi Stofile as saying Mandela had written to the head of the World Cup local organizing committee and ‘demanded’ tickets to the match.
‘He himself demanded to be part of the opening match and the local organizing committee said fine,’ Stofile was quoted as saying.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, which represents the anti-apartheid icon, refused to confirm the report.
‘We don’t discuss Mr Mandela’s movements ahead of time because of security reasons,’ Sello Hatang, spokesman for the foundation said.
The president of World Cup organising body FIFA Joseph Blatter had said earlier this week he was losing sleep over whether ‘the most charismatic humanist’ alive would join the 94,000-strong capacity crowd at the stadium in Soweto township.
Mandela lived in Soweto before being jailed for 27 years between 1963 and 1990 for resisting white supremacist rule.
Four years after his release, he was elected president in the country’s first democratic national elections.
