In 1999,
De Telegraaf reported that Havelange accepted gifts of diamonds, bicycles, sports articles,
Delft blue porcelain, paintings and art books, in connection with Amsterdam's failed bid for the
1992 Summer Olympic Games. "I remember it very well because he had special wishes, wishes which were in conflict with the IOC laws," said Peter Kronenberg, who headed the press office of the Amsterdam Olympic Games 1992 Foundation. In May 2006, British investigative reporter
Andrew Jennings' book
Foul! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote-Rigging and Ticket Scandals implicated Havelange in the collapse of ISL, and revealed that some football officials were urged to secretly repay the commissions they received. In 2011, Jennings told Brazil's Senate that Havelange may have amassed $50 million or more in bribes through a front company called Sicuretta. An IOC ethics committee was announced in June 2011 to investigate claims that Havelange received a bribe of $1 million in connection with ISL. The investigation was prompted by Jennings' claims in ''FIFA's Shame
, an episode of Panorama'' broadcast on
BBC One in May 2011. In November 2011 Jennings accused Havelange of being one of the people who collectively paid 5.5 million CHF to close the 2008 ISL fraud trial. In July 2012, after protracted court proceedings, Havelange and Teixeira were named as beneficiaries of bribes from ISL. A prosecutor in the canton of
Zug revealed a document saying that, from 1992 to 2000, Havelange and Teixeira were paid 41m CHF by ISL. Teixeira had resigned from FIFA in March 2012. In 2012 Sepp Blatter said that at the time of this payment,
commercial bribery was not a crime in Switzerland. In 1997, as President of FIFA, Havelange had granted ISL FIFA's exclusive marketing rights, and exclusive TV and radio rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups in 1998. ISL paid FIFA 200m CHF for the marketing rights and $1.4 billion for the TV rights. After ISL's bankruptcy, its liquidators examined all payments made by the company.
FIFA involvement FIFA, under the presidency of Sepp Blatter, was found to have known about the bribes, yet argued it did not need to have the money repaid. Prosecutions were mounted for alleged embezzlement against Havelange and Teixeira, but were stopped in May 2010, after Havelange and Texeira repaid CHF500,000 and CHF2.5m respectively. The repayments were considered reasonable, because bribes paid before 1995 were outside the statute of limitations and Havelange was now over 90 years old. The prosecutor also believed that Havelange and Teixeira were guilty of criminal breaches of their duties to serve FIFA as senior executives. Following the release of the report, Blatter vowed to strip Havelange of his honorary presidency at the next
FIFA Congress.{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/9401828/Fifa-president-Sepp-Blatter-plans-to-strip-disgraced-Joao-Havelange-of-honorary-president-title.html|title=Fifa president Sepp Blatter plans to strip disgraced Joao Havelange of honorary president title ==Health issues and death==