Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 16, (GNA/dpa) – Joao Havelange, the former president of world football governing body FIFA, has died in hospital in Rio de Janeiro.
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His son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, took over at the CBF for two more World Cup trophies in 1994 and 2002 but also faced allegations of irregularities, which he denied, and he resigned for medical reasons in 2012 after 23 years as president.
But with more cash for football also came widespread financial wrongdoing by its top officials, including Havelange.
Havelange ushered in big-money sponsorship of the finals, turning them into a highly lucrative operation that had television networks and some of the world’s largest corporations falling over themselves to get a slice of the action. He was allowed to resign his Federation Internationale de Football Association honorary presidency in 2013.
In the end, for many, he is remembered for being the president during a corrupt and turbulent era that has continued to engulf worldwide soccer.
“During his 24 years as president. football became truly global, reaching new territories and bringing the game to all corners of the world”, current FIFA head Gianni Infantino said in a statement.
Havelange won a bronze medal in water polo at the 1951 Pan American Games. Over the next quarter century Havelange would change the way the world experienced football. Havelange wasn’t named in the indictment.
In April 2013, Havelange resigned from his position as FIFA’s Honorary President, a post he had held since 1998, for health and personal reasons. He helped to transform the group and its flagship event, the World Cup, into a multibillion-dollar enterprise. “Football has become the most important and most respected movement on Earth”. He ran the organisation from 1921 to 1954. He had been a member of the International Olympic Committee.
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Born to a wealthy Belgian immigrant family in Rio de Janeiro on May 8th 1916, Jean-Marie Faustin Goedefroid de Havelange graduated with a law degree, but sport was his true love. His father was a mining engineer. At age 20, he competed in Brazil’s swimming team in the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. He same year, he also qualified as a lawyer.
