Former FIFA President João Havelange has died at the age of 100 in Rio, having been hospitalised since July with pneumonia.
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On behalf of the Board of Directors of The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc., we regretfully inform you of the passing of João Havelange, Brazilian lawyer and businessman, President of Federation Internationale de Football Association (1974-1998), and 1994 recipient of the Person of the Year Award.
The Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, site of the Summer Olympics track and field events, was originally named for Havelange.
Havelange served as the head of football’s world governing body from 1974 until 1998, when he handed the reins over to Sepp Blatter.
He handed over to Sepp Blatter, whose time at the helm was also dogged with corruption allegations.
“A 100-year-old man has died today and I think it would be entirely inappropriate to discuss that (wrongdoing)”, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said.
Ricardo Teixeira, the former president of the Brazilian football confederation, said: “He was the great creator of football as we know it today, from a financial and technical standpoint”. Havelange was the ultimate power broker who used all his political and commercial connections to cut deals and consolidate his power around the world.
He also became a member of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and joined the International Cycling Union in 1958.
Havelange represented Brazil in swimming at the 1936 Olympics – the year he qualified as a lawyer – before his election to the IOC. Officially he left for health reasons, but his departure was two days before he was due to face an ethics investigation into allegations he had taken bribes to funnel contracts to a marketing company called ISL. “The only country I never visited was Afghanistan, because they wouldn’t let me in”.
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With outsider backing strong enough as to be impossible to ignore, Havelange managed to depose Englishman Sir Stanley Rous as President in 1974. He was hospitalized for more than two months, including several weeks in intensive care, in 2012 because of an infection in his right ankle. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
