João Havelange
Former President of FIFA and member of the International Olympic Committee has died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 100
(Photo: Getty Images/Buda Mendes)
João Havelange, who has died at the age of 100 in his home town of Rio de Janeiro, was one of the pioneers in the globalisation of sport.
As the President of FIFA from 1974 to 1998, Havelange took football from its base in Europe and turned it into a truly global game.
A member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1963 to 2011, Havelange played an instrumental part in bringing the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games to Rio de Janeiro.
In 2009, in a speech made before the IOC chose which city would host the 2016 Games, Havelange said: “I invite all of you to be with me in 2016, in my city, in the new Brazil, to celebrate the Games and also, in an incredible coincidence, my 100th birthday.”
Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and of the Rio 2016 Organising Committee, said: “João Havelange was a pioneer in the globalisation of sport, taking football to new countries and continents. He took the message of sport to the whole world.
“His participation was decisive in our holding today the first Olympic Games in South America. It was a pleasure that he could see this dream become a reality. Our thoughts are with his family and with the friends he made in a life that was dedicated to sport.”
As a young man, Havelange represented Brazil as a swimmer at Berlin 1936 and as a member of the national water polo team at Helsinki 1952.
