João Havelange, the Brazilian businessman who built soccer into a multibillion-dollar international enterprise over his 24 years as the autocratic head of the sport’s world governing body but who was later implicated in a scandal involving millions of dollars in kickbacks, died on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro. He was 100.
Samaritano Hospital in Rio confirmed his death, The Associated Press reported. He had been hospitalized several times in recent years and was treated for pneumonia last month, The A.P. said.
When he was elected in 1974 as the first non-European president of soccer’s world governing body, known by the acronym FIFA after its French name, the organization, based in Zurich, had been in existence for 70 years.