Nelson Mandela has enjoyed a thunderous greeting from thousands of fans at the World Cup closing ceremony.<\/p>\n
The former South African president flashed his famous smile as he was driven across the pitch in a golf cart with his wife, Grace Machel.<\/p>\n
Earlier, his grandson said Fifa had put Mr Mandela under “extreme pressure” to attend the game in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
Mandla Mandela said the engagement would be “strenuous” for the 91-year-old, who is increasingly frail.<\/p>\n
Shaking hands <\/strong><\/p>\n The crowd at the Soccer City stadium in Soweto welcomed Nelson Mandela with a mixture of cheers and vuvuzela blasts.<\/p>\n There were chants of “Madiba”, the clan name by which he is affectionately known.<\/p>\n Warmly wrapped against the winter chill, the anti-apartheid icon shook hands with officials before leaving the field a few minutes later.<\/p>\n He was expected to watch the actual game at home on television.<\/p>\n The Nobel laureate cancelled plans to attend the opening ceremony after his great-granddaughter died in a car crash the night before the tournament.<\/p>\n Speaking to the BBC earlier, Mandla Mandela said: “We’ve come under extreme pressure from Fifa [the governing body of world football] requiring and wishing that my grandfather be at the final.<\/p>\n Heads of state and leading figures from business and entertainment jetted in to see European champions Spain take on the Netherlands.<\/p>\n The BBC’s Jonah Fisher, in Johannesburg, says the tournament is judged to have been a success for South Africa.<\/p>\n More than three million people have attended the games, while the widely predicted security and transport problems have failed to materialise.<\/p>\n Nelson Mandela’s attendance will be seen as the perfect end to a competition that has boosted not only his country but all of Africa.<\/p>\n However, he remains in fragile health and is still in mourning for great-granddaughter Zenani Mandela, 13, who was killed in a car crash after leaving a World Cup concert in Soweto on the eve of the tournament.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Mr Blatter expressed hope that Mr Mandela would attend the final, saying: “He has had this trophy in his hand when he was in Zurich in 2004, and it will be a wonderful moment for him, for football, for Africa – if this can be a possibility.”<\/p>\n Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, before becoming South Africa’s first black president after the fall of apartheid in 1994.<\/p>\n BBC News<\/em><\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Nelson Mandela has enjoyed a thunderous greeting from thousands of fans at the World Cup closing ceremony. The former South African president flashed his famous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[4100,4121,4109],"class_list":["post-11145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-nelson-mandela-at-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2010-final"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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