Henri Jooris

Henri Jooris (23 April 1879 – 29 March 1940) was a French businessman, industrialist, and sports manager. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures of football in the Nord in the first half of the 20th century.

Throughout his life, he combined economic commitments with several sporting functions in the management of sports clubs, federations, and leagues, serving as the president of both Olympique Lillois (1919–32) and the Northern Football Association League (LNFA, 1919–24), the vice-president of the French Football Federation (1919–24), and was also a benefactor member of ten sports companies. Under his presidency, the LNFA became one of the leading leagues in France, with more than 20,000 members and nearly 600 clubs, including OL, which became one of the great clubs in France during his presidency, winning the LNFA four times, along with the inaugural edition of the French professional championship in 1932–33, which he had first proposed on a letter addressed to Jules Rimet in 1929. The home stadium of Olympique Lillois, which hosted a quarter-final in the 1938 World Cup, was named after him.

As a businessman, he was nicknamed the "first baker of France", being one of the great bosses of the North of France between the two world wars. He was noted for his permanent interventionism and outrageous authoritarianism, two character traits that explain as much his successes as his relative failures.