Hirschman played his football with three different clubs in the Hague - Excelsior, HVV and then HBS but he developed an early passion for the organisation of the game, becoming the president of the Football League in the Hague at the age of just 18 and then the secretary-general of the Dutch FA two years later.

Hirschman was 27 when he took his place around the table at the founding of FIFA and was appointed vice-president before two years later taking over as secretary-treasurer, a position he held until 1931. He worked tirelessly with Daniel Woolfall to put FIFA on a sound footing over the next decade, helped heal a potentially terminal split in the federation in the aftermath of the first world war, and then worked with Jules Rimet to help create the World Cup.

His office in Amsterdam was the de facto office of FIFA until his retirement. As a banker he suffered significant losses in the Wall Street Crash, including money invested on behalf of FIFA. It was an inglorious end to a career of one of the most important and influential figures in FIFA’s history. Aged 54 when he left FIFA, he died in Holland aged 74.

Although there is no record of him having been a footballer, he rose to the level of secretary-general of the USFSA, the sporting body created by the Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin, with control over the football section of the multi-sports body. Guérin’s push to create an international federation was a reflection of the organisation he worked for.

“It was necessary to create a kind of police force to supervise the development of the newly founded European federations” he said, “and to ensure that the rules and regulations of football were applied internationally, so that relations between countries would always be friendly.”

But Guérin’s tenure at the head of FIFA was brief and despite being a founder, his impact on the organisation afterwards was negligible. “At this first Congress, it was agreed that the presidency would be handed over to England as soon as it joined the association” he recalled, and he stepped aside for Daniel Woolfall who was confirmed as president at the 1906 Congress in Berne. In later years Guérin concentrated on his journalism, writing and editing for L’Auto, Le Matin, L’Ouest-Eclair and L’Aviation Française.

In 1903 he was elected vice-president of the DBU and it was as their representative that he attended the first FIFA Congress. Speaking 25 years later he recalled the humble origins of the organisation. “I remember that day in May, 25 years ago, where we, only 5 representatives, from France, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark in a little back room in Paris founded the F.I.F.A., now today a world wide-ranging organization.”

Although he was appointed the assistant-secretary to FIFA at the Congress, his work with the DBU meant that he was happy to step aside two years later at the congress in Berne. Sylow went on to become president of the DBU as the Danes established themselves as the most powerful team on the continent before the First World War.

Twice they appeared in the Final of the Olympic Football Tournament, losing only narrowly to the English amateurs on both occasions, in 1908 and 1912. Denmark’s international debut had come in the 1908 tournament and they marked the moment by winning 9-0 against France. In 1910 they became the first team to beat the English amateurs in a landmark 2-1 victory on the home ground of Sylow’s club in Copenhagen.

Espir was also prolific off the field as an administrator, founding among others the l'Association Sportive Française in 1895. He was also involved in Pierre de Coubertin’s USFSA and it was in this role that he was present at FIFA’s founding in 1904. He took the minutes at that historic meeting though in later years his memory of the occasion seems to have dimmed.

“The meeting, which was then held at the headquarters of the U.S.F.S.A., in the modest premises of the rue St. Honoré in Paris, consecrated this agreement and recorded, in addition to the adhesion of the French and British Federations, that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland and Sweden, if I remember correctly.” It appears not!

Although Espir was present at the first five FIFA congresses, the USFSA’s relationship with FIFA was a troubled one. Adhering to the strictly amateur ethos of De Coubertin they withdrew in 1908 at the refusal to admit the English Amateur Football Association which had broken away from The FA in 1907. That meant that although he appeared at the 1909 Congress in Budapest, Espir was not representing France but Italy!

Representing the Association Suisse de Football, Schneider was nominated as vice-president and was the busiest of all the delegates over the following years. He was responsible for publishing the Bulletin Officiel which first appeared in September 1905.

At the second congress, also held in Paris, in June 1905, Schneider offered to have a trophy for an international championship made and stated that Switzerland was prepared to host the event in the spring of 1906. The tournament failed to materialise but Berne did host the 1906 FIFA Congress with Schneider in the chair.

It was at Berne that The Football Association got fully behind FIFA with Daniel Woolfall taking over as president and CAW Hirschaman as secretary. Schneider was asked to join the two of them, along with Germany’s Robert Hefner in a committee to rewrite the statutes of FIFA and to put the organisation on a firmer footing. He also chaired the 1908 Vienna Congress in the absence of Woolfall but resigned from FIFA later that year.

From the turn of the 20th century Belgium had become the focus for a number of international club tournaments and there were numerous Belgian clubs wishing to play games over the border in the Netherlands and France, so-called ‘frontier clubs’.

It was a desire to coordinate international club football that provided the initial impetus for the creation of FIFA but when France brought a representative team to Brussels on 1 May 1904, national team football joined the agenda. At that match Mühlinghaus and Guérin finalised the arrangements for the first FIFA Congress later that month, although, along with his colleague Max Kahn, Mühlinghaus didn’t make it to the first day, having missed the train to Paris.

In his two years as secretary-treasurer Mühlinghaus had been involved in discussions about setting up an international championship for 1906, but at that point most of the nations affiliated to FIFA had yet to play an international match and the idea didn’t materialise until 1908 with the football tournament of the Olympic Games.

Of the notable figures from Belgium who played an active role in the early years of FIFA, Kahn’s impact was perhaps the most fleeting. He attended just two FIFA Congresses, the founding Congress of May 1904 in Paris and the 1908 Congress in Vienna, although he did act as an unofficial observer at the extraordinary congress of 1908 held in Brussels.

In 1904 he accompanied Louis Mühlinghaus, the secretary-general of the Union Belge des Sociétés de Sports Athlétiques (UBSSA) to Paris but was the only one of the non-French delegates who did not take an official position in the new federation. Kahn led a very busy life outside of football, running the Kahn International Institute, an organisation set up in the 1870s by his father to educate Jewish children from around the world.

Football and other sports were an important part of the institute from the start, helped by an influx of students from across the Channel in England. Little wonder then that Kahn was such a sporting pioneer in Belgium, even forming his own club – the Kahn Athletic Club. He was the longest-lived of the seven founders of FIFA.