Is "acknowledge(accept status) sb + to + infinitive" valid?
Cambridge University Press's online English dictionary has this example: "She is usually acknowledged to be one of our best artists" and OUP's online dictionary has this example: "He is widely acknowledged to be the best player in the world".
From this, one can extrapolate that the people doing the acknowledging can say "I acknowledge him to be the best player in the world".
I haven't found a form with to+infinitive other than "to be". I can imagine "I acknowledge him to play chess better than Kasparov", but it sounds very stilted, compared with "I acknowledge that he plays ...".