Changing Room Chat: Euro heroes No 12, Henri Delaunay

IF the British are the great inventors and codifiers of sport then the French are the undisputed masters of international competition. Three of the biggest sporting events in the world – the football World Cup, the modern Olympic Games and the European football championships – all have French founding fathers in Jules Rimet, Pierre de Coubertin and Henri Delaunay.

The 16 teams in Poland and Ukraine for Euro 2012, which starts today, will be competing for the Henri Delaunay Cup.

Delaunay, born in 1883, is a former player and referee who rose to become a leading football administrator with the French federation, Uefa and Fifa. He assisted Rimet in the creation of the World Cup in 1930 and was a long-standing proponent of an international European championships, which he pushed hard for as head of Uefa. The first tournament was played in 1960, five years after Delaunay’s death.