Former Fifa president Joao Havelange dead at 100

Former Fifa president and International Olympic Committee member Joao Havelange has died at the age of 100.

Havelange passed away at the Samaritano Hospital in Rio de Janeiro n Tuesday.

He served as Fifa president from 1974 to 1998 in which he spearheaded the expansion of the World Cup from 16 to 32 teams (5 of which are from Africa). He was elected at a time when the rest of the world felt that the competition and the game in general had a European bias.

He was succeeded by Sepp Blatter.

Havelange represented Brazil in swimming at the 1936 Olympics – the year he qualified as a lawyer – before his election to the IOC.

He then served as an IOC member from 1963 until 2011 when he retired due to ill health.

His tenure as Fifa president was fraught with allegations of bribery which also fingered his son-in-law Ricardo Texeira, a former president of the football federation of South America, Conmebol and Fifa executive.

Havelange denied the accusations.