PARIS (AFP) – The International Olympic Committee on Monday confirmed Joao Havelange’s resignation as an IOC member after 48 years just days before an ethics hearing into allegations of corruption.

The 95-year-old was under investigation for his links with FIFA’s former marketing agency, International Sport and Leisure (ISL), which went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of around $300 million.

His resignation as the longest serving member of the IOC means that he will escape any punishment in the event of a guilty verdict in Lausanne on Thursday.

“We have received Joao Havelange’s resignation letter,” an IOC spokesperson said.

Havelange was accused by a BBC documentary in 2010 of kickbacks totalling $1 million from ISL for granting lucrative World Cup contracts.

Havelange, who became an IOC member in 1963, was FIFA president between 1974-98 before he was replaced by his long time FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter.

The Brazilian, who competed at two Olympic Games in 1936 in Berlin as a swimmer and then in the 1952 edition in Helsinki as a member of the water polo team, is credited with modernising football into the moneymaking industry it is today.

He was also instrumental in bringing the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro and to South America for the first time when the International Olympic Committee elected the city as the host in 2009 in Copenhagen.

He gave a rousing address at the final presentations by the candidate cities at the Copenhagen meeting in front of his fellow IOC members saying that should Rio win the Games then everyone would be invited to his 100th birthday on the famed Copacabana beach.

Thursday’s hearing will now focus on the two other IOC members accused of corruption – International Association of Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack and Issa Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football.