André Billy (football manager)

André Billy
André Billy in 1900
Vice-president of the USFSA
In office 1906–1908
President of Olympique Lillois
In office 1907–1911
Preceded by	André Nicodème
Succeeded by	Henri Jooris
Secretary of UIAFA
In office 1909–1911
Personal details
Born	André Billy (1877-05-13)13 May 1877 Bazeilles, Ardennes, France
Died	9 August 1913(1913-08-09) (aged 36) Saint-Gervais, France
Association football career Managerial career Years Team 1906–1908 Northern France 1906–1908 France (1)

André Billy (13 May 1877 – 9 August 1913) was a French football manager and sports leader. He 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 later its president between 1907 and 1908.^[1] 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),^[2] and as such, he co-managed the matches of the French national team between 1906 and 1908.^[3][4]

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).^[2] He was the youngest of four siblings, including two older brothers Jean Baptiste (who died shortly after its birth in 1872) and Stéphen, and one older sister, Agnes Thérèse Marthe Billy, who died in 1879.^[2]

At the turn of the century, Billy had become the director of the Compagnie Française de Stérilisation des Flours in Lille, and an advisor to foreign trade in France.^[1][2] In 1902, he was one of the industrialists and traders from Lille who took the initiative to found Olympique Lillois, a multi-sports club with sports sections devoted to basketball, tennis, rugby union, field hockey, and most notably, football.^[1][5]

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 André Billy,^[3] the latter being the president of said commission.^[2] The due of Espir and Billy co-managed France between 1906 and 1908, having replaced Robert Guérin, who was the first manager of the French team from 1904 to 1906.^[4] In that same year, Billy, who had also become the vice-president of the Northern Committee of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), began organizing annual meetings between the football teams of Paris and Northern France.^[6] Both sides selected players who belonged to elite clubs from their regions, and who benefited from training conditions and remuneration that allowed them to honor the selections.^[6]

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, taking advantage of the so-called "Paris-Nord" meetings to be spotted by Billy, the selector of the French team, and thus earn their first international caps.^[7] For instance, in his first game in charge, a friendly match against the powerful England Amateurs, Billy debuted four players, three of which from the North, including the RC Roubaix strikers Émile Sartorius and André François, and Olympique Lillois goalkeeper Zacharie Baton, who conceded a record-breaking 15 goals, a record that still stands.^[8] In the 1907 Paris-Nord match, 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).^[7] Between 1906 and 1908, Billy selected AS Française midfielder Jean Zimmermann five times, but never took him out of the bench.^[9]

In 1907, the president of Olympique Lillois, André Nicodème, decided to resign and gave his place to Billy, who was not only the secretary general in office, but also one of the club founders five years earlier.^[1] His role as the vice president of the USFSA greatly facilitated the integration of OL into the "Olympic" dynamic.^[1] On 27 April 1908, Billy took advantage of an unofficial match between Northern France and England AFA in Tourcoing, which had been authorized by the USFSA, to meet up with Mr. Févez, the president of the AFA.^[10] At the FIFA Congress held in Vienna on 7 and 8 June 1908, only the USFSA voted in favor of the AFA, whose membership was refused, forcing France to withdraw, which was a bitter failure for Billy.^[10] This vote meant that the USFSA found itself isolated, so they decided to leave FIFA, and the vacated place was quickly seized by the CFI, but the northern clubs remained loyal to the Union.^[7][10] 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.^[10] Excellent relations were established during these meetings and therefore, on 13 December 1908, these three federations founded the UIAFA,^[10] which was established in Paris on 18 March 1909, with the Frenchman Billy as secretary.^[10][11] Despite the failure of the Vienna Congress, Billy was convinced that Switzerland would join the UIAFA, which eventually happened, but only two years later.^[10]

This new federation allowed Billy to initially retain the confidence of the USFSA association football committee, but he was still outvoted in the elections of May 1909 and forced to resign due to the grievances related to the disastrous resignation of FIFA.^[10] He felt betrayed by his former second-in-command, André Espir, who had become president of the said committee in his place, which meant that Espir was now the sole manager of UIAFA's France, which played unofficial matches with the likes of the AFA.^[7] In order to achieve a little personal revenge, Billy weakened UIAFA's France by refusing to allow Lillois's players to play for them (Bacrot, Eloy, Montagne), on the pretext that, "intoxicated" by their selection, they had not given their best in the championship.^[7] This decision had the desired outcome since Espir's team was humiliated by the England AFA on 12 March 1910, losing 0–20.^[7]

Later that year, Billy's other presidency, that of OL, was also being challenged, this time by Henri Jooris, a powerful industrialist whose ideas frequently opposed those of the Lillois president, so much so, that the two leaders had a falling out and nearly fought a duel.^[1] On 19 February 1911, Billy and Jooris witnessed OL win the first title of its history, the USFSA Northern Championship, following a 3–0 victory over RC Roubaix, thus finally putting an end to the invincibility of Roubaix and US Tourquennoise.^[12] This victory allowed OL to compete in the USFSA national championship for the first time in 1911, in which they were knocked out in the quarter-finals after a 4–1 loss to FC Rouen. Despite this success, Billy lost the loyalty of OL's board of directors to Jooris, who was named the club's new secretary general. This caused Billy to resign, deciding to find another club, Club Lillois, which had a very anonymous and ephemeral life.^[1]

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.^[6]

Billy died suddenly in Saint-Gervais on 9 August 1913, at the young age of 36, and was buried four days later on 13 August.^[2]