Nelson Mandela is backing South Africa's 2010 World Cup bid
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South Africa have sent Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the Caribbean to boost the country's bid to host the 2010 World Cup.
The former Nobel Prize winners left Johannesburg on Thursday for Trinidad and Tobago to meet Jack Warner, the presdient of the central and north American and Caribbean confederation (Concacaf).
The pair will also be attending the Concacaf congress that is happening in Grenada over the weekend.
The support of Concacaf, which has three votes on the 24-man Fifa executive committee that will decide who hosts the 2010 World Cup in Zurich on May 15, is seen as key to South Africa's hopes of hosting the tournament.
South Africa is one of five candidates bidding to be the first African country to host the event and faces competition from Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.
Mandela and Tutu are also expected to travel to Zurich on the eve of next month's vote.
They will be part of a heavyweight South African delegation led by President Thabo Mbeki and which will also include several cabinet ministers and Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron.