Thomas Balvay Thomas Balvay Thomas Balvay (2 February 1888 – 15 July 1945) was a football referee in the 1920s and 1930s and one of four European referees who participated in the first FIFA World Cup in 1930 in Uruguay. He was the only match official from France at the tournament. He had been an international referee since 1922 and twice refereed the Coupe de France (in 1926 and 1928). He travelled to Uruguay on the SS "Conte Verde", which also took Jules Rimet and the French, Belgian, Romanian and Brazilian teams to the first World Cup; picking up the teams en
Brazil at the 1970 FIFA World Cup and had the largest official audience ever recorded for a football match, with 183,341 spectators in Brazil's Maracanã Stadium. In total the Brazilian team won all 12 games, scoring 42 goals and conceding only 8. With this third win after their 1958 and 1962 World Cup victories, Brazil became the world's most successful national football team at that time, surpassing both Italy and Uruguay, who each had two championships. Brazil also earned the right to retain the Jules Rimet Trophy permanently. (However, it was stolen in 1983 while on display in Rio de Janeiro and never recovered.) Brazilian coach Mário