One beautiful autumn morning I cycled from my flat in Paris to a municipal cemetery in the suburb of Bagneux. I was looking for the grave of Jules Rimet. Bagneux was a surprisingly unglamorous place for him to be buried; when he died in 1956, he had served as FIFA’s president for thirty-three years, and the World Cup trophy had already been named after him. There was a sprig of withered leaves that someone must have left months before. Only one inscription in the stone was still legible: “Simon