Former FIFA president Joao Havelange has died aged 100.

Havelange, a former Olympic swimmer, died in hospital in this year’s host city, Rio.

A statement from the hospital yesterday read: “The Hospital Samaritano (Botafogo) reports that former FIFA president Joao Havelange passed away early this morning. The institution sympathises with family and friends of the sports director.”

The Brazilian was president of FIFA from 1974 to 1998, replacing Stanley Rous before being succeeded by Sepp Blatter, his long-standing general secretary.

Havelange engineered the expansion of the World Cup from 16 to 32 teams but will be more significantly remembered for overseeing a culture of self-reward which continues to see football’s world governing body dogged by corruption scandals.

Havelange resigned as honorary president of FIFA in 2013 after a report by its ethics committee revealed he had received bribes along with two other FIFA members who followed him in governing Brazilian football.

The report stated that Blatter authorised the transfer of 1.5 million Swiss francs (£1m) to Havelange in 1997 after ISL, a sports marketing firm with strong links to FIFA, mistakenly sent the payback to the governing body.

However, the former IOC member continued to be honoured elsewhere and Rio’s Olympic Stadium bears his name in tribute to the role he played in bringing the Games to Brazil.

Havelange, who swam in the 1936 Olympics, had previously been president of the Brazilian Sports Confederation (CBD) from 1958 to 1973, during which time the national football team won three World Cups.