Henri Delaunay French Football Federation in 1919, he remained as secretary-general. As a member of FIFA, he sat on its board as deputy from 1924 until 1928. Along with Jules Rimet, he was an early architect of the FIFA World Cup. He was also a very early proponent of the European Champions Cup, as early as the 1920s. Together with Jules Rimet, he was largely responsible for the creation of the European Football Championship, the trophy of which is named after him, having first proposed it in 1927. The first tournament took place in 1960. He was General Secretary of UEFA from
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