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
Jules Rimet and in part because the Uruguayan Football Association offered to pay all travel costs. Rimet travelled to Uruguay for the World Cup on SS "Conte Verde" along with the competing European teams, all the while carrying the trophy in his bag. However Rimet's decisions on where to host the first few World Cups led to criticism: European nations complained about the 1930 World Cup because players would be out of domestic tournaments for three months, which was why only France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia sent teams to compete, and those only competed because of Rimet's influence. The following World Cup