Aimé Étienne Jacquet (born November 27, 1941) is a French football coach and former player, and manager of the France national football team when they won the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Aimé Jacquet was born in Sail-sous-Couzan, Loire. He began his career as an amateur player for his local club, US Couzan, while working in a factory. Scouted by Saint-Étienne, he joined Les Verts in 1959 and signed his first professional contract in 1961. One of the most successful soccer clubs of the time, Saint-Étienne, won an impressive 5 league titles and 3 French Cups in his 11 years with the club. He also played for the national side, but his international career failed to take off because Les Bleus performed poorly during his years on the team. In 1973, he left Saint-Étienne for bitter regional rivals Olympique Lyonnais , where he ended his career as a player.

Jacquet worked as a manager for clubs around France and gained an impressive list of accolades for Bordeaux during the 1980s, leading them to 3 league titles, 2 French Cups, 2 European semi-finals and 1 quarter-final. Dismissed by President Claude Bez, he left Bordeaux to hone his managerial skills with more modest teams like Montpellier and Nancy.

Jules Rimet (14 October 1873 – 16 October 1956) was a French football administrator who was the 3rd President of FIFA, serving from 1921 to 1954. He was FIFA's longest serving president, having served for 33 years. He also served as the president of the French Football Federation from 1919 to 1946. On Rimet's initiative, the first FIFA World Cup was held in 1930. The Jules Rimet Trophy was named in his honour. He also founded the French football club Red Star Saint-Ouen.

Jules Rimet was born in 1873 in eastern France. His father was a grocer, and together the family moved to Paris in 1884 when Jules was eleven years old. He became a lawyer, and in 1897 he started a sports club called Red Star which due to Rimet's ideals, did not discriminate against its members on the basis of class. One of the sports played at the club was football, which was becoming popular based on the game originating in English public schools.

Rimet was involved in the founding of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (commonly abbreviated to FIFA) in 1904, and while the fledgling organisation had plans for a global professional tournament, it instead was involved in running an amateur tournament as part of the 1908 Summer Olympics.

Raymond Domenech (French pronunciation: [ʁɛmɔ̃ dɔmɛnɛk]; born 24 January 1952 in Lyon) is a retired French footballer and the former manager of the France national team.

On 12 July 2004, Domenech was a surprise choice to succeed Jacques Santini after the country's disappointing exit from UEFA Euro 2004 by losing in the quarter-final match to the eventual tournament-upset winners Greece. He was given the objective by the FFF to reach "at least" the 2006 FIFA World Cup semi-finals.

France struggled in the qualifiers, even though the team was seeded in a group that included the relatively unheralded teams of Israel and Switzerland. The Republic of Ireland were France's main contenders in the group, and looked like contributing to France's exit until Zinédine Zidane returned to inspire France^{[neutrality is disputed]} to a 1–0 win at Landsdowne Road, ultimately ending the hopes of the Irish. Domenech had to force^{[citation needed]}Claude Makélélé, Lilian Thuram and Zinedine Zidane, members of France's "golden generation," out of international retirement to aid the national team to eventually qualify. The general consensus in France, however, was that France was too dated a side to win the 2006 FIFA World Cup,^{[citation needed]} despite the return of their cherished talisman, Zidane.