André Billy

André Billy (13 May 1877 – 9 August 1913) was a French footballer and sports leader, who is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the amateur beginnings of Olympique Lillois, being one of its founders in 1902, and then serving the club as its first captain from 1902 to 1903 and later as president from 1907 to 1911.

He also served as the vice president of the Northern Committee of the USFSA (1906–08), and was the president of the central commission of Football Association (1906–08), and as such, he co-managed the matches of the French national team between 1906 and 1908. However, he is best known for being the main responsible behind the separation of the USFSA, which had governed football in France since 1894, from FIFA, in 1908, due to his intransigence on international amateurism.

Early life André Billy was born in Bazeilles, Ardennes, on 13 May 1877, as the son of Joseph Omer Billy (1845–1920), a grain and flour trader, and a Mill operator in La Moncelle, and of Augustine Orphise Naudin (1844–1927). At the club's founding meeting, Billy was named the team captain of its first team,

In the summer of 1903, Billy, already a member of the Association Commission of the USFSA, traveled from Lille to Arras to personally meet the goalkeeper of the local college team, the 16-year-old Zacharie Baton, convincing both his parents and the director of the college to let him come every weekend to Lille to guard the goals of Olympique Lillois. He seems to have retired from the playing fields in 1903, but six years later, in April 1909, a certain "A. Billy" played as a midfielder for JA Saint-Ouen; however, this Billy was a different person because on that same day, he was an assistant referee to Albert Collier in the final of the 1909 USFSA Football Championship.

Managerial career Between 1904 and 1908, the selection of the French national team was made in principle by the central commission of Football Association, but in reality by influential personalities, such as André Espir and Billy,

1906 During the years of Guérin, the French team was largely made up of only Parisians, but under Billy, the Northerners made their entrance on a large scale, thus suddenly "de-Parisianized" the selection. Indeed, they had noted that Belgian's full-back Edgard Poelmans constantly delivered precise passes to his forwards, so he had the idea of intercepting them, an excellent avant-garde idea that never came to fruition because the captain of the French team, Pierre Allemane, forgot to give France's winger Raymond Jouve the instructions he had received from Billy: to mark and hinder Poelmans; France lost 0–5. Three days later, on 7 April, he attended the final of the 1907 USFSA Football Championship between RC France and RC Roubaix, in which he approached one of the correspondents for L'Auto, grabbing him "by a button on his coat", to explain that he canceled his Paris-Nord match because his ideal had not been achieved and "that the players from the North are better than those from Paris, and that they will demonstrate this shortly". And indeed, the Paris-Nord match ended up being held, and Georges Bon scored a goal to help the Northerners win 4–1, so Billy decided to give him his first (and only) cap in a friendly against Belgium at Uccle on 21 April 1907, in which Bon helped France achieve its first-ever away win by contributing to France's winning goal (2–1).

Sports managerial career Screw up with FIFA Billy kept rising through the ranks of Olympique Lillois, becoming its secretary-general around 1905, and then its president in 1907, following the resignation of André Nicodème.

Because of this, France ended up sending two teams to the 1908 Olympic Games, one controlled by the CFI/FIFA and the other by USFSA, with Billy being the coach of the latter, which had a few northerners, such as Fernand Desrousseaux, Adrien Filez, and Georges Prouvost, and even though they were knocked out in the quarter-finals following a resounding 9–0 loss to Denmark, the CFI's side performed even worse, losing 17–1 to Denmark.

UIAFA At the end of September 1908, Olympique Lillois made a trip to Prague, where Billy, USFSA's vice president, met the leaders of Bohemia as well as some of the AFA who had also made the trip, to discuss the idea of an international federation of amateurs. and which was officially established in Paris on 18 March 1909, with the Frenchman Billy as secretary. On that same day, UIAFA organized its first-ever international match in Colombes, between England AFA and France, which was selected by Billy, who once again chose Baton as its goalkeeper, who again conceded several goals on his debut in an eventual 0–8 loss. claiming victories in Antwerp, Marseille, Frankfurt, England, and even Luxembourg. but despite the club's success, he lost the loyalty of OL's board of directors to Jooris, who was named the club's new secretary-general, a position until then occupied by Billy's friend and former teammate, Louis Schubart. This caused Billy to slam the door on OL, and went on to create a rival club in 1912, Club Lillois, but despite taking half the team with him, this club had an ephemeral life, because it was around this time that he became ill with tuberculosis, which made it impossible for him to guide the club properly. Interestingly, his friend Schubart was not involved in the creation of this club, unlike Georges Veilletet, who was part of OL's 1902 half-back line.

To perpetuate OL at the top of regional football, Jooris, now alone, organized matches across Europe, and in 1912, he took up Billy's idea of the Paris-Nord matches by creating the Lions of Flanders, a selection of players from the biggest clubs in the Nord.

Death Billy died in Saint-Gervais on 9 August 1913, at the young age of 36, and was buried four days later on 13 August. The local press stated that he had been fighting tuberculosis for eighteen months, but "surely he had in himself that faith, sometimes exaggerated, that he also had in his sporting work and which cost him irremediable errors".

Reputation Throughout his sporting career, the will and energy that had helped Billy in his professional and business affairs began to gradually become exasperated into an intransigence that did not admit contradiction, which earned him several real "headbutts" that often led to his resignations, first from the USFSA in 1909, and then from OL in 1911. After his death, some local journalists stated that "his work had been disastrous to OL, whose great destiny he ultimately hindered by his intransigence, after having made it a success". Similarly, they praised him as "the man to whom we owe the most the extension of our international relations in the sport of football", something which he also ultimately hindered when he slammed the door on FIFA in 1908.

Due to the excessive authority that he carried with him everywhere, Billy was nicknamed l'Empereur ("the Imperial"), or even the "Napoleon of football", and indeed, he fought many "battles", and afterwards, he would gather "his" men in front of countless beers and, like a general, would criticize them.

Honours Olympique Lillois Coupe Manier: Runner-up (1): 1902