FIFA ex-president Joao Havelange died at the age of 100

16 August did not become former FIFA President Joao Havelange, who died at the Samaritano Hospital in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 100 years due to lung problems.

Havelange was born 8 in May 1916, in Rio de Janeiro, in the family of a Belgian arms dealer. However, the future president of FIFA chose a different path and linked his life with sports, writes The Washington Post.

The history of Havelanzh will go down not only as a brilliant manager, but also as a brawler and a corrupt official. He was accused of turning football into a business, but at the same time, football tournaments are held in honor of Joao, the stadiums are named after him, and even now the Olympians in Rio are competing in the Olympic stadium named after Joao Havelange.

He was born into a rich family in Rio. Joao was an excellent student at school. After graduation he entered the law faculty of the Federal University Fluminense.

After studying, he worked for several years in his specialty.

Joao was interested in sports since childhood, writes with the BBC. Already at the age of 20, in 1936, he took part in the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin as a swimmer. However, he did not demonstrate success there - he was unable to qualify for the 400 and 1500 m freestyle distances. Joao Havelange's Olympic story did not end there. In 1952, at the age of 36, Havelange took part in the Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki as a member of the Brazilian water polo team.

After completing his sports career, Havelange switched to administrative work. He began as president of the Brazilian Swimming Federation. This position enabled him to automatically get into the Brazilian Olympic Committee in 1955. In 1956, he led the Brazilian delegation at the Games in Melbourne.

In 1958, Havelange expands his field of activity, joining the International Cycling Union, in the same year he becomes president of the Brazilian Football Confederation.

Football is an icon of Brazilian sport. Whoever runs football leads Brazil - that’s what they still say in the country.

In the same 1958, at the World Championships in Sweden, Brazil became world champion. The discovery of this championship was 17-year-old Pele, who is still considered by many to be the “king of football.” In 1962, in Chile, the Brazilians were able to repeat their success. Havelange rode a wave of success. Under him, the national team held the title of best in the world for 8 years; Pele and Garrincha shone in its composition.

In 1963, Havelange became a member of the International Olympic Committee. The ambitious Joao could no longer stay in Brazil, which was already too small for his ambitions. In the 1974 year, the FIFA presidential elections were to take place, and Havelange put forward his candidacy. His rival was the current head of FIFA, the Englishman Stanley Rose. As a result, Joao was supported by the 86 federations - the world welcomed the first and so far the only non-European president of FIFA.

Havelange builds a new international office in Zurich, appointing professional full-time employees - PR, financiers, marketers. The FIFA headquarters staff, which was 1970 people in 12s, increased almost 10 times. The organization’s area of ​​responsibility and its commercial interests also increased, and a number of new regular tournaments were organized: youth (for soccer players no older than 20 years) and youthful (no older than 17 years) world championships, Confederations Cup and Women's World Championship, held from 1991 year .

Profit from the sale of television rights has increased significantly. In 1987, the European rights to the next three world championships were sold for $ 440 million, the rights to the 3 tournament from the 1998 of the year (without the US market) were sold for $ 2,2 billion. Football with Havelange brought huge revenues.

Havelange was one of the initiators of the World Cup Youth Championship in the USSR in 1985. Vyacheslav Koloskov, the long-term head of Russian football, admitted that Havelanzh always treated Russia well and even rested with him on Lake Baikal.

“He had an interesting trait. He never took off his jacket and tie in his life and never ate anything during flights, even very long ones. He had water, dry biscuits and a huge book with puzzles and crosswords. We flew with him many times. And even during the 11-hour flight, he did not change clothes or eat,” noted the former president of the RFU.

In 90, Havelange was preparing for himself a reliable successor. He invited Joseph Blatter to work at FIFA back in the 70s. In 1998, he passed on his legacy to Blatter.

In April, 2013, Havelange was forced to leave the post of FIFA Honorary President in connection with a corruption scandal. According to FIFA, during the period from 1992 to 1997, Year Havelange and his former son-in-law, ex-president of the Brazilian Football Confederation Ricardo Teixeira received large bribes from the marketing company ISL for lucrative contracts for broadcasting matches of the World Cup. The amount of bribes received by the FIFA president and his former son-in-law since 1992 was about 41 million Swiss francs. The court promulgated documents from which it follows that taking bribes was common practice for FIFA structures from the 1970s. For example, from 1989 to 1998, the marketing company ISL, which was involved in the scandal, paid FIFA officials no less than 123 million Swiss francs.

In 2012, officials were found guilty of receiving a whole series of bribes from ISMM / ISL. Havelange has not been prosecuted in this case because of his advanced years. Later, the American prosecutors sunk and Blatter, for the same charges - total corruption in FIFA.

Despite all the scandals, Havelange has many awards - he is a holder of the Legion of Honor, and has government awards from Brazil, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and other countries.

From 1988 to 1997, the second most important club football tournament, called the Super Cup Joao Havelange, was held in South America; all former winners of the main club tournament of the continent took part in it.

In 2007, in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, the Olympic Stadium of Joao Havelange was built, designed for 45 thousands of spectators.

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