FORMER FIFA PRESIDENT Joao Havelange has died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 100.
Havelange was the first non-European chief of world football’s governing body between 1974 and 1998, when he was succeeded by Sepp Blatter and received the title of honorary president.
He resigned from the latter largely ceremonial role in 2013 after a report by Fifa’s ethics chairman Hans-Joachim Eckert ruled he had taken bribes as part of a scandal involving the now-defunct International Sports and Leisure (ISL) sports marketing agency.
Havelange competed as an Olympic swimmer for Brazil at Berlin in 1936 and was a member of their 1952 water polo team in Helsinki.
At the Melbourne 1956 Games he was Brazil’s chef de mission before joining the International Olympic Committee in 1963.
As the IOC’s longest-serving member, Havelange stood down in 2011 with an ethics hearing pending over the ISL affair.
The Olympic Stadium at the on-going Rio Games, which began three months on from his 100th birthday, is named in his honour.
