- Havelange was born in Rio de Janeiro in May 1916
Former Fifa president Joao Havelange has died at the age of 100. The Brazilian was predecessor to Sepp Blatter at world football's
governing body, serving from 1974 to 1998.
He resigned as Fifa's honorary president in April 2013 following an
investigation into bribery allegations and was admitted to hospital the
following year with a lung infection.
He was an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member from 1963
until 2011, resigning because of ill health.
"He had one idea in his head, to make football a global game
with his slogan 'football is the universal language', and he succeeded,"
said former Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
Havelange represented Brazil in swimming at the 1936 Olympics - the
year he qualified as a lawyer - before his election to the IOC.
As Fifa president he led the World Cup's expansion from 16 to 32
teams, with six competitions held under his tenure.
However, his career was also mired in controversy over bribery
allegations.
In 2010, a BBC Panorama programme accused Havelange and son-in-law
Ricardo Teixeira of taking millions of dollars in bribes from Swiss marketing
agency International Sport and Leisure (ISL) to retain the company as Fifa's
sole official marketer.
Joao Havelange and Argentina's Diego Maradona
Joao Havelange hands the World Cup trophy to Mexico president
Miguel de la Madrid to present to Argentina captain Diego Maradona at the 1986
final
His resignation from the IOC five years ago avoided an
investigation into the ISL allegations, which Havelange had denied.
In 2012, Teixeira stepped down as head of Brazil's football
federation, a position he filled for 23 years, and resigned from the 2014 World
Cup organizing committee after coming under pressure over corruption
allegations, which he also denied.
As well as swimming at the 1936 Olympics, Havelange was part of the
Brazilian water polo team at the 1952 Helsinki Games and was chef de mission
for the Brazilian delegation at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.
And it was as a sports administrator, particularly in football,
that Havelange made his mark.
He embarked on a career which began as president of the
Metropolitan Swimming Federation in Brazil. He also became a member of the
Brazilian Olympic Committee and joined the International Cycling Union in 1958.
After becoming vice-president of the Brazilian Sports
Confederation, he served as president from 1958 to 1973, before he became the
most powerful man in world football.
In 1974 he succeeded Britain's Sir Stanley Rous to be elected Fifa
president, marshalling support among those unhappy at the perceived European
domination of the world governing body.
An imposing figure, with piercing blue eyes, his astuteness as a
politician and his adeptness at retaining power enabled him to hold the Fifa
presidency for 24 years until being succeeded by Blatter in 1998.
When Havelange was elected president, Fifa's Zurich headquarters
housed just 12 staff members. But that figure increased almost tenfold over the
next two decades as Fifa's organizational responsibilities and commercial
interests grew.
Increasing the size of the World Cup to 32 teams gave countries
from Asia, Oceania and Africa the chance to shine on the world stage, Cameroon
becoming the first African country to reach the quarter-finals in 1990.
It was Havelange who launched a wave of new tournaments, notably
the world championships at Under-17 and Under-20 level in the late 1980s and the
Fifa Confederations Cup and Fifa Women's World Cup at the start of the 1990s.
Gary Lineker
