Muhammad Ali funeral open to people from 'all walks of life'

Muhammad Ali died of septic shock due to unspecified natural causes his family has confirmed as they announced his funeral will take place on Friday in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

Ali, who died aged 74 on Friday night, had lived with Parkinson’s disease for 32 years and suffered from related health problems. He had been admitted to hospital on Monday with a respiratory ailment.

"He'll be remembered as a man of the world who spoke his mind and wasn't afraid to take a chance and went out of his way to be a kind, benevolent individual that really changed the world," the family spokesman, Bob Gunnell, said at a news conference in Arizona. "He was a citizen of the world and would want people from all walks of life to be able to attend his funeral."

Members of his close family paid tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion with one of his daughters saying his heart wouldn't stop beating for 30 minutes after all of his other organs failed.

Hana Ali wrote on Instagram "no one had even seen anything like it."

She said Ali's family held his hands and chanted an Islamic prayer in his final moments while his heart kept beating as his other organs failed.

She described it as a "true testament to the strength of his spirit and will."

Ali's younger brother Rahman Ali said he was a "sweet, kind, nice" man who "was the world's most famous person".

"There was nobody on this Earth more famous than Muhammad Ali, he was known in every country. God blessed him because he was such a sweet person. My mother and father were sweet, good people, and he came from good stock. He was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man, he will be missed."

As tributes poured in from around the world, Barack Obama said that Ali "shook up the world".

The US President said he "fought for what was right," and was comparable to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela in their impact on the world and for speaking out "when others wouldn't."

He said even as Ali's physical powers were in decline, the boxing great "became an even more powerful force for peace and reconciliation around the world."

The President said Parkinson's disease may have "ravaged" Ali's body, but it "couldn't take the spark from his eyes."

George Foreman, Ali's friend and rival from the famous Rumble In The Jungle fight, said: "We were like one guy - part of me is gone."

His funeral will take place in his home town of Louisville on Friday June 10, at 2pm at the KFC Yum! Centre, where it will be live streamed on the internet and translated into other languages.

Former US president Bill Clinton and comedian Billy Crystal will deliver eulogies at the service, which will be open to the public. A procession will also be held in Louisville on the same day.

The family spokesperson said Ali was a “citizen of the world” and wanted people of all walks of life to attend.

Describing her father’s final moments, one of Ali's daughters, Hana Ali, said his heart “wouldn't stop beating” for 30 minutes after all his other organs had failed. She said it was a “true testament to the strength of his spirit and will”.