JOHANNESBURG, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA - Sunday, May 29, 1994: Life-long Liverpool FC supporter and newly elected President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela meets the Liverpool players before the United Bank Soccer Festival friendly match at Ellis Park Stadium. John Barnes and Neil Ruddock. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Liverpool and football unites to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, who has died aged 95

Tributes have poured in from Liverpool and football fans for the late former South African president Nelson Manela, who died on Thursday, aged 95.

JOHANNESBURG, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA - Sunday, May 29, 1994: Life-long Liverpool FC supporter and newly elected President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela meets the Liverpool players before the United Bank Soccer Festival friendly match at Ellis Park Stadium. John Barnes and Neil Ruddock. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Freedom campaigner Mr Mandela spent 27 years in prison before leading South Africa’s during transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s.

Mr Mandela had been suffering from a long-term lung infection.

“What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves,” President Jacob Zuma is quoted by the BBC as saying.

“Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.”

Mr Mandela met Liverpool players at a United Bank Soccer Festival friendly match at Ellis Park Stadium in May 1994.

JOHANNESBURG, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA - Sunday, May 29, 1994: Life-long Liverpool FC supporter and newly elected President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela meet the Liverpool players during the United Bank Soccer Festival friendly match at Ellis Park Stadium. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)..Michael Thomas, Lee Jones, Ashley Neal, David James, Bruce Grobbelaar, Steve Nicol, Robbie Fowler, Sammy Lee, Phil Charnock, Nelson Mandela, John Barnes, Roy Evans, Ronnie Moran, Andrew Harris, Lee Jones, Neil Ruddock, Dominic Matteo.

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