It will be the opportunity of a lifetime for Special Olympics footballer Mark Liggins when he plays in the curtain-raiser to the World Cup quarterfinal in Cape Town on Saturday.
Higgins will play in the Unity Cup match with 1982 All Whites World Cup captain Steve Sumner.
Also competing will be football greats Alan Shearer, Abedi Pele and Kevin Keegan.
The Unity Cup will feature two football teams comprised of seven Special Olympics athletes and seven celebrity partners.
Liggins, from North Harbour, was chosen from the 5300 athletes who participate in Special Olympics in New Zealand, said national communications adviser Bette Flagler, who was in Dunedin yesterday.
Special Olympics New Zealand was founded in 1983 and is administered in five districts.
Flagler will watch the ribbon day event at the Edgar Centre in Dunedin on Sunday and will co-ordinate the planning for the New Zealand Summer Games in Dunedin 2013.
"It is huge for Special Olympic athletes and can be a life-altering experience for the kids," Flagler said.
Flagler said New Zealand would be represented by 42 athletes at the World Summer Games in Greece next year.
She emphasised Special Olympics was not just about the elite competing in major sports competition.
"It is more about the participation and training aspect," Flagler said.
"It is about year-long training for everyone. There is nothing more important to them than the athletes' ribbon day competition."
Special Olympics was founded in the United States in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of President John F. Kennedy.
There are now 3.5 million Special Olympic athletes in 170 countries around the world.
The World Summer Games are held every four years.
The next Winter Games will be in 2013.
"The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletics competition in a variety of Olympic sports for children and adults," Flagler said.
In New Zealand there are 40,000 people with intellectual disabilities.
"Special Olympics serves less than 2% of the world's population with intellectual disabilities," Flagler said.
"There are nearly 200 million people with intellectual disabilities in the world. They are society's most neglected population."
