The top brass of the World's Gov­ern­ing Body of Foot­ball are all in South Africa at­tend­ing the Se­nior Men's World Cup, but de­spite the nu­mer­ous dig­ni­taries it is T&T's Jack Warn­er, who is the most sought af­ter by World Lead­ers. Yes­ter­day at the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the World Cup at the Soc­cer City Sta­di­um, Warn­er re­ceived high prais­es from none oth­er than UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon. The UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al thanked the Se­nior Fi­fa Vice Pres­i­dent for all his ef­forts in bring­ing the World Cup to South Africa. "Mr Warn­er, you are an in­flu­en­tial man, this event has un­tied a na­tion un­der one ban­ner, foot­ball. There is hope again in South Africa."

Ear­li­er this week at the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the 60th Fi­fa Con­gress in Jo­han­nes­burg, Head of the Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee of the World Cup Dr Ivan Khoza pub­licly thanked Warn­er for ef­forts in en­sur­ing that South Africa was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to host the world tour­na­ment. "We spent al­most sev­en hours in a meet­ing try­ing to con­vince Jack Warn­er we in South Africa can do it. Mr Warn­er was open with his crit­i­cism but he gave us valu­able ad­vice. To this day it is un­known whether he vot­ed for us but when one of the world's most in­flu­en­tial lead­ers in foot­ball speaks you must lis­ten. With­out you South Africa would have nev­er been able to wel­come the world." But this isn't the first time Warn­er has been cred­it­ed for his ac­tions in en­sur­ing the Fi­fa 2010 World Cup is brought to South Africa.

Back in June 2009, Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zu­ma, al­so praised Warn­er for his ef­forts in get­ting the 2010 Fi­fa World Cup to South Africa. The South African Pres­i­dent stat­ed "With­out your ef­forts and per­son­al in­ter­ven­tion, none of this to­day would have been pos­si­ble in South Africa. South Africa owes you a debt of grat­i­tude." In 2004, For­mer South African Pres­i­dent and In­ter­na­tion­al Icon Nel­son Man­dela flew to Trinidad to hold talks with Warn­er in an at­tempt to so­lic­it his sup­port for his na­tion's World Cup bid. Warn­er promised then that he would have helped South Africa show the world what "the great peo­ple and the na­tion can do de­spite any ob­sta­cles."