HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAVELANGE

Remember Sepp Blatter? Yes, what a rogue. Do you remember Sir Stanley Rous? What a gent!  
Rous, from near Lowestoft, was a trainee teacher at St Luke's, Exeter and worked at Watford GS. He was also a referee.
They were both FIFA Presidents and Joao Havelange, a Belgium born, Brazilian lawyer, was elected between them and served as the 7th FIFA President between 1974-98, the second longest reign. He also served on the IOC (Olympics) from 1963-2011 and celebrated his 100th birthday on May 8th this year.

An arms dealer, he swam for his country at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (have you been to the Olympic "Park" in Berlin?), played water polo at the 1952 Helsinki Games and was Chef de Mission for his country at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

In his time as President he increased sponsorship acquiring money for the FIFA World Cup from Adidas and Coca Cola particularly and brought on board Horst Dassler from Adidas and Patrick Nalley, a sports' marketeer, to modernise the global tournament. He increased the number of teams qualifying for the finals from 16 to 32 and was a champion for the "Less Developed" countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. He introduced the Under 17 World Cup, the U20s tournament, the Confederations Cup and the Women's World Cup. His daughter married Brazilian footballer Ricardo Teixeira.

FIFA was formed in 1904 and the President then was Frenchman, Robert Guerin. In 1906 Daniel Burley Woolfall, an Englishman from Blackburn, took over from him and introduced uniform international football laws, based on the English model. The 1908 Olympic football tournament organised by Woolfall was the first international tournament and included teams from outside Europe for the first time.

After Woolfall, in 1921, Jules Rimet was elected to President and of course the World Cup is named after him.

After the Second World War in 1955, Arthur Drewry was FIFA President and then Rous took over from him in 1961. Drewry was an administrator and eventually Chairman with Grimsby Town FC and later was Chairman of the FA.

As the sole England selector at the time, he was known for his involvement in the chaotic selection of players during the disastrous World Cup campaign in 1950, when England lost famously to the USA. To his credit he was responsible for raising money for the 1958 Manchester United Munich Fund.