Henri Delaunay (15 June 1883 – 9 November 1955) was a French

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

administrator.

Biography

After playing for the Paris team Étoile des Deux Lacs, he became a

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

. He retired following an incident during a match between AF Garenne-Doves and ES Benevolence, when he swallowed his whistle and broke two teeth on being struck full in the face by the ball. He started his career as an administrator in 1905 when he became president of Étoile des Deux Lacs, then secretary-general of the Comité français interfédéral (CFI), the ancestor of the

French Football Federation The French Football Federation ( FFF; french: Fédération Française de Football) is the governing body of football in France. It also includes the overseas departments ( Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion), the over ...

. When the CFI became the French Football Federation in 1919, he remained as secretary-general. As a member of

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

, he sat on its board as deputy from 1924 until 1928. Along with

Jules Rimet Jules Rimet (; 14 October 1873 – 16 October 1956) was a French football administrator who was the 3rd President of FIFA, serving from 1921 to 1954. He is FIFA's longest-serving president, in office for 33 years. He also served as the presid ...

, he was an early architect of the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

. He was also a very early proponent of the European Champions Cup, as early as the 1920s. Together with Jules Rimet, he was largely responsible for the creation of the

European Football Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contes ...

, the trophy of which is named after him, having first proposed it in 1927. The first tournament took place in 1960. He was General Secretary of

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

from its foundation on 15 June 1954 until his death. When he died in 1955, he was succeeded as head of UEFA by his son

Pierre Delaunay Pierre Delaunay (9 October 1919 – 23 January 2019) was the second General Secretary of UEFA. He succeeded his father Henri Delaunay in the post, on an interim basis from his father's death on 9 November 1955 and then officially from 8 June 1956. ...

References

External links

* . * . * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Delaunay, Henri French football referees UEFA officials 1883 births 1955 deaths