JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president Nelson Mandela will once again steal the spotlight this week when world leaders and legends of football pay homage to the anti-apartheid icon as he turns 89.

Mandela, who officially announced his retirement from public life back in 2004, will welcome fellow members of the ex-world leaders club to Johannesburg on his birthday on Wednesday for the launch of their new think tank designed to tackle some of the world's most pressing problems.

And while he will not be there in person himself, Mandela will be the focus of a football match in his honour in Cape Town in the evening when the likes of Pele and former Dutch star Ruud Gullit will seek to turn back the clock.

As the first ever black president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, Mandela had a reputation of delegating much of the day-to-day business of running the country to his eventual successor Thabo Mbeki.

But he has not simply sat back and let others take the strain in his twilight years.

“I need to warn you that some of us become more active after stepping down from office,” Mandela warned Blair, with a trademark twinkle in his eye that shows no signs of fading.

Mandela often jokes that he is “just an old man” but the likes of Blair and other world leaders still beat a path to his door in South Africa when not taking it easy with his third wife Graca Machel in Mozambique.

His guests on Wednesday will include former US president Jimmy Carter and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan at the launch of the celebrity brains trust whose stated aim is to contribute “wisdom, independent leadership and integrity in addressing some of the world’s toughest problems”.

In an email exchange with a South African newspaper at the weekend, Mandela showed how he still keeps a keen eye on the problems facing the nation, identifying education, poverty and HIV/AIDS as its main challenges.

“I have always maintained that these three pose the biggest threat to us and I still do,” he told the Sunday Independent.

“But I am confident that the government has the capacity to deal with them and I don't want to be thought prescribing in any way to the government on how it should address them.”Mandela has been wary of being seen as critical of Mbeki and his African National Congress government since standing down as head of state after only one term, with even his veiled comments dominating the headlines.

There has been much speculation that candidates hoping to succeed Mbeki as president of the ANC at the end of the year have been trying to secure Mandela's endorsement but he has so far given no hint as to his choice.—AFP