FIFA as an illiberal and corrupt kleptocracy? That is the legacy of Joao Havelange who ruled FIFA from 1974 to 1998 with an iron fist, transforming the organization into a institution of unsurpassed financial and political clout. Football morphed into a global brand with kickbacks and vote buying as part of that ceaseless commodification. Under him, power transferred to faceless technocrats with little love for the game but with great understanding of market forces. Sepp Blatter who he mentored and handed the reins to inherited that legacy and took it to another level. Havelange passed away after a long illness at the ripe old age of 100 years.
As the venerable writer and keen observer of football, Eduardo Galeano had this to say: In 1974, after a long climb, Jean Marie Faustin de Godefroid Havelange reached the summit of FIFA and he announced, “I have come to sell a product called football.” Think of the multi-nationals associated with the World Cup, Adidas, Mastercard, and Coca Cola to name a few, and it was Havelange who roped them in with the promise of untold riches of which he and his cronies took in their share. Coca Cola underwrote the entire 1978 World Cup in Argentina for $8mn.
An anecdote is probably more illustrative: At an investors meeting in New York in 1994, Havelange warned: “Football is a commercial product that must be sold as wisely as possible. You have to pay a lot of attention to the packaging.” In that same meeting, he boasted football generated a total of $225bn worldwide every year. A figure which has climbed two decades later to a stratospheric $5.8tn. A figure that underlines FIFA’s real friends are the multi-nationals.
Havelange was no friend to the player as he chummed up to the CEO’s of the world. The unprecedented reach of TV and the billions of dollars that came with viewing rights changed the way players were treated. In 1986, the Mexico World Cup were beamed live to Europe which meant matches began noon time in the hot, frying sun. Naturally, the players protested but Havelange dismissed them with a curt, ” they should play and shut their traps.”
When Havelange finally resigned his honorary position as FIFA president in 2013, it was because he was implicated in the ISL marketing scandal. Along with his son-in-law Ricardo Texeira, former head of the CBF. Court documents revealed they had accepted $42mn in bribes from ISL from 1992 to 2000. Ironically, one of the founders of ISL, Horst Dassler, CEO of Adidas, was Havelange’s partner in the globalization and marketing of football. He was called the “puppetmaster” and in Havelange he had found a willing puppet. Havelange’s supporters might argue he helped give voice to marginal football associations and brought the game to their shores but it came with a huge price. FIFA is still cleaning up his mess decades after he left the throne.