Joao Havelange: From Hitler's Olympics to creating Sepp Blatter

If one man can be said to be responsible for modern sport as we know it, it is Joao Havelange, who has died aged 100. The Brazilian former FIFA President and IOC member died in Rio while the eyes of the world are fixed on the country’s Olympics.

“His legacy,” said veteran sports writer Keir Radnedge, who has covered Havelange’s career throughout, “is the world of sport as we know it.” That legacy was a mixed one, as AP’s Rob Harris observed.

Journalist Matt Scott also picked up on a key part of Havelange’s legacy.

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The story of Havelenge’s influence on the world of sport is, in many ways, also the story of how the world changed in the 20^th century – a story not just about sport but about power and politics and the exercise of influence.

The man born Jean-Marie Faustin Goedefroid de Havelenge competed in the swimming pool for Brazil at the 1936 Berlin Olympics before retiring from competitive sport to build up a transport business. At the same time he worked his way up the ladder of sporting administration, becoming president of the Brazilian sports federation and, in 1963, a member of the International Olympic Committee.

He saw, in Brazil’s trio of World Cup successes in 1958, 1962 and 1970, a chance to build a platform for himself to challenge incumbent Sir Stanley Rous for the presidency of FIFA. In the story that unfolded, Rous is the metaphor for the Empire – an Englishman convinced of his right to lead and so unaware of the changes happening around him. He made a series of blunders that Havelange capitalised on.

Rous did not recognise the ambition for change among the African nations, nor did he fully recognise the antagonism towards apartheid South Africa. Rous also did not see the need to keep the emerging China onside, and lost the support of the Soviet Union when he expelled the Soviet team from the 1974 World Cup qualifiers after they refused to play Chile in the Santiago stadium that had been used as a prison camp by the CIA-backed coup against that country’s elected government.

Slowly, Havelange built support wherever he could find it – displaying a ruthless streak in pursuit of power. As Radnedge says: “Havelange had no compunction about the leaders he met, whether monarchs or murderers. If they could deliver a vote, he reeled it in.” In the 1974 election, Havelenge secured the FIFA presidency by 62 votes to 52, stunning Rous and the complacent European establishment in the process.

He led the organisation for 24 years, utterly transforming it. And he did so by utilising the power of sponsorship and television. Almost immediately, Havelange joined Horst Dassler, of the adidas empire, and English entrepreneur Patrick Nally to float a new marketing concept. This took the four best advertising placements around the pitch and offered the package exclusively to a sponsor on a sector exclusive basis. And that’s why sports tournaments have official soft drinks, official snacks and official beers to this day.

The first company they approached was Coca-Cola. With the money from the deal they signed, they bought back the rights to all the images of the World Cup that FIFA had pretty much given away over the lifetime of the competition.

It was from that base that the modern FIFA was born. When Havelenge was elected, FIFA had a staff of 11. Now, it is a huge organisation with hundreds of staff around the world. And the TV/sponsorship model has been used by football to turn it into the world’s most prominent sport.

Havelange was a revolutionary, but also an autocrat who operated a system of widespread patronage. As FIFA’s power grew, so the rewards for those who could rise within the organisation grew. And so too did the risks taken to get some of those rewards.

In 1998, Havelange stepped aside having ensured Sepp Blatter succeeded him. Blatter was to continue operating in the way Havelenge had established until the corruption scandal broke over the organisation, an event sparked by a sports agency going bust. That agency was ISL, the one formed by Havelenge when he bought out Nally in 1982 for the purpose of controlling all FIFA commercial activities. ISL, it was found, had offered illicit inducements to sports officials in positions of power in order to maintain its commercial supremacy.

In 2013, after a long investigation, Havelange was forced to resign the honorary presidency of FIFA. Hans-Joachim Eckert, the FIFA ethics court judge, said Havelange’s conduct had been “morally and ethically reproachable”.

That Havelange was one of the most influential figures in world sport is beyond doubt. He recognised sport’s full potential and saw the emergence of a global market in which it could thrive.

There were undeniably benefits – sport has developed far beyond the European heartlands that pre-Havelange FIFA oversaw, and while the individuals who took so much out of the sport have been well-publicised, the fact that some of the money generated has gone back into the game is often overlooked. Perhaps that’s no surprise given the scale of the individual successes, but it needs to be remembered nonetheless.

What Havelange did reflects what has happened on a wider scale in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. He used the raw power of capitalism to force and embed change, tapping into the free-market revolution that promised all things to all people. And he did so in a manner that showed that far more stuck at the top than trickled down.

In establishing sport as a business, Havelenge brought us closer into its embrace but also sowed the seeds of our current discontent with it. When we ask if the business of sport remembers the sporting values that made it such a good business, we are also asking what Havelenge’s legacy really means.