World soccer body FIFA ordered flags to be flown at half-mast and a minute’s silence to be held before the next round of international matches after the death of Nelson Mandela on Thursday.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, in Brazil for Friday’s draw for the 2014 World Cup, paid tribute to the former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize winner in a statement.
“It is in deep mourning that I pay my respects to an extraordinary person, probably one of the greatest humanists of our time and a dear friend of mine, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,” said the Swiss.
“When he was honoured and cheered by the crowd at Johannesburg’s Soccer City on July 11, 2010, it was as a man of the people, a man of their hearts, and it was one of the most moving moments I have ever experienced.”
Mandela’s last major appearance on the global stage came at those 2010 World Cup finals, the first to be hosted on African soil, when he attended the final in Soweto to a thunderous ovation from the 90 000 strong crowd.
The man who made reconciliation the theme of his presidency had also won over many whites when he donned the jersey of South Africa’s national rugby team – once a symbol of white supremacy – at the final of the Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg’s Ellis Park stadium in 1995.
Reuters