Cape Town is to host a charity game featuring some of the world’s greatest footballers to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday.

The “90 Minutes for Mandela” match will be played at Newlands Stadium on 18 July, where an Africa XI team will play a Rest of the World XI.

Star players include Brazilian football legend Pelé, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, France’s Christian Karembeu, former European player of the year Ruud Gullit, and local soccer stars Lucas Radebe, Mark Fish and Philemon Masinga.

The full squads will be announced closer to the match.

"It is an honour for Cape Town to host such a star-studded birthday game for Madiba. We welcome all the icons of this sport in Cape Town and know that their visit and the actual match will be something special,” said City of Cape Town 2010 spokesperson Pieter Cronje.

“It underlines Cape Town's importance not only as a key host city during 2010, but also a place for milestone events in the run-up to 2010. Cape Town hosted the first 2010 FIFA workshop last year and will also play an important part in CAFs 50th anniversary celebrations in September this year."

According to FIFA, the charity match will “unite the world football family in a 90 Minutes for Mandela tribute to the legendary South African statesman, who has personified the fight against all forms of racism and discrimination and was instrumental in the decision to bring the FIFA World Cup™ to Africa and more specifically, South Africa, for the first time in 2010.”

The match will also be used to promote awareness about racism. FIFA launched its “Say no to Racism” campaign last year in order to take a firm stance against players enduring racist taunts from fans. Tokyo Sexwale is the High Commissioner for this campaign,

The charity match is being organised by FIFA, the South African Football Association (Safa) and the Local Organising Committee, as well as the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the FIFPro (the international federation of professional football players).

Proceeds will go to legacy programmes targeting South African youth by using soccer to develop educational, health and social programmes.

Tickets are on sale through Computicket. For more information, visit FIFA.com or the City’s 2010 website.