Ernest Weber was a French football pioneer and sports journalist, who was one of the most important figures in the amateur beginnings of football in Paris, co-founding several historic clubs in the French capital in the 1890s, such as Club Français in 1892 and Red Star FC in 1897, the latter with Jules Rimet, the future president of FIFA.^[1] As the star journalist of the French newspaper L'Auto in the early 20th century, he played a prominent role in promoting football in the country, but he is best known for being a very influential figure in the locker room of the French national team in its first years of existence.^[2] He was the author of one of only two chronicles relating France's inaugural match in 1904, the other being Robert Guérin, founder of FIFA.^[3]

Ernest Weber was born in Montmartre, but spent the better part of his childhood at Gros-Caillou, where his grandmother lived.^[1] He was the father of Jean Weber, a member of the Comédie-Française.^[1]

Even though the official founders of Club Français were Eugène Fraysse and Charles Bernat, L'Auto stated in 1938 that "Arriving from England, where they had studied, 4 Frenchmen: Bernat, Fraysse, Mestre and Weber; in October 1892, the Club Français was born", which was the first club reserved exclusively for the French, hence the club's name.^[4] And in fact, he was playing at Club Français in 1897,^[1] and even though the club was constantly changing fields, CF's position remained solid, even institutional, because many of its members were sitting on the USFSA Football Commission or ensuring media coverage like Weber or André Saint-Ignan.^[5] Having been a former teammate of Fraysse, Weber described him years later as a "loud-mouthed, abrupt, violent", but also an exciting leader of men and captain.^[4]

Jules Rimet, the future president of FIFA, was introduced to football by Weber and Charles de Saint-Cyr, a fellow journalist and former member of the Racing Club de France.^[1] On 21 February 1897, the 23-year-old Rimet gathered his circle of close friends at the sports café on rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, which included Weber and Saint-Cyr, along with his brother Modeste and his brother-in-law Jean de Pessac, and together, they founded the multi-sports club Red Star, with football gradually taking over all the activities offered.^[1][6][7]

At some point before becoming a columnist for L'Auto (the forerunner of L'Équipe), Weber also played for Stade Français.^[8]

Weber wrote for several French newspapers, such as La Vie au grand air, L'Auto, and L'Intransigeant.^[1] During the inaugural Tour de France in 1903, which was organized by L'Auto, its circulation lept from 25,000 to 65,000 copies sold per day, thus becoming one of the biggest daily newspaper in the country and the reference for sports news in France.^[9] Weber took advantage of such a platform to establish himself as one of the most influential figures in the world of French football at the time.^[2]

In 1900, he published a book called L'athlétisme par Ernest Weber.^[10]

Following the success of a match between a French national team and the English club Corinthian, a club specializing in European tours, a handful of patrons, including Weber, created an entity to repeat the effort, the so-called Société d’Encouragement Football Association (SEFA), an external body independent of the USFSA, the then sports governing body in France.^[3] Thanks to Weber, SEFA secured the financial support of L'Auto to welcome the English professional club Southampton for two international matches on 13 and 14 March 1904 at the Parc des Princes; it was then that USFSA's chairman, Robert Guérin, under the risk of giving up control of France's international matches to a parallel organisation, proposed to the Council of the USFSA to form the French national team itself, and therefore, the two French teams that faced Southampton were assembled by the USFSA and by FSAPF, instead of the SEFA, whose selectors included Weber and Jack Wood.^[3][11] In the preview of these matches, Weber wrote that "our nationals will do better than a good showing against the English champions, against these famous professionals whose exploits have until now been somewhat legendary for us and who will finally become realities".^[11]

In the following month, on 16 April, SEFA assembled a French team to face Corinthians, which was welcomed to Paris by a reception committee that was made up of the most notable figures in French football at the time, including Weber, Gilon (SEFA), William Sleator (The White Rovers), Walter Hewson (Cook et Cie house), Philip Tomalin, Alfred Tunmer, Jack Wood, Shepherd (Williams house), Delolme, the Paris Committee of the USFSA, United SC, and the newspapers L'Auto and La Vie au grand air.^[12] In the preview of this match, Weber explained that SEFA's white shirt would be confused with the white of the Corinthians, so the French instead wore a black and gold striped shirt provided by the Williams house.^[12]

In addition to Club Français and Stade Français, some sources have stated that Weber also played as a forward at United SC, a club of English and Swiss immigrants; for instance, on 6 March 1904, in a 2nd series match of the USFSA Paris championship [fr] between the second teams of United SC and Racing Club de France, Weber scored his side's only goal in a 1–3 loss.^[11] However, this Weber was a different person, because on 1 May 1904, while the player was helping United SC, the champions of the USFSA, to a 5–1 win over Étoile des deux lacs, the champions of the FGSPF, the journalist was in Brussels, as the representative of L'Auto in the inaugural match of the French national team against Belgium, so he could write the technical summary of the game, which was publishing the next day.^[13] For many years, this short article from Weber was commonly accepted as the only source of reference relating France's debut, until another report was found in 2020, in a non-sports daily newspaper, La Presse, under the signature "OFF-SIDE", which was the pseudonym of Robert Guérin, founder of FIFA.^[3] Guérin referred to this "Franco-Belgian match" as France's "official" debut, as part of the creation of FIFA, hence why Guérin did not allow SEFA to interve in this match; however, France's inaugural team included seven of the players who faced Corinthians in April, most of which had been selected by Weber and Wood, so even though Guérin chose the players without their help, he still validated some of their previous choices.^[3]

In his reports, Weber had to arrange fake names for both Louis Mesnier (Didi) and Fernand Canelle (Fernand) in order to make their presence more discreet, because even though the army had granted them 48-hour leaves, those leaves did not include crossing borders.^[14] Furthermore, Weber and Guérin also had to manage last-minute withdrawals; for instance, he temporarily concealed the news about the withdrawals of Pierre Allemane and Charles Wilkes, releasing this information only on the following day, so as "not to worry our internationals", thus demonstrating his predilection for psychologic tactics.^[15] Despite the withdrawals, the French squad arrived in Brussels with 12 men, and after much discussion between the players, Guérin, and Weber, it all came down to a coin toss between Jacques Davy and Emile Fontaine, which was won by the former.^[16] Before the match, Weber and Guérin boosted the morale of the players, instilling in them the desire to save national honour, because "we have, in fact, to defend our colours"; the match ended in a 3–3 draw,^[3] and Weber was amazed that both teams enjoyed it.^[17]

Weber was once again the journalist L'Auto's journalist for France's second match against Switzerland, in which he stated that "Association football, a sport little known to the general public, has just asserted itself once again".^[8][18] On 22 April, France faced Belgium for the third time in its history, and during the previous two, Weber had noted that Belgian's full-back Edgard Poelmans constantly delivered precise passes to his forwards, so he had the idea of intercepting them, an excellent avant-garde idea that never came to fruition because the captain of the French team, Pierre Allemane, forgot to give France's winger Raymond Jouve the instructions he had received from Weber: to mark and hinder Poelmans; France lost 0–5.^[2] If this had been done, Jouve would have become the first international player theoretically responsible for applying individual gegenpressing, a first in terms of tactics.^[2]

In France's next match against Belgium on 21 April 1907, at Uccle, Weber praised the debutant Georges Bon for pressing the opponents despite being a forward, because back then the forwards did not carry out defensive work.^[19]

Like many other members of the USFSA, Weber advocated maintaining complete amateurism, so he actively fought against "brown amateurism", which was the illegal payment of an officially amateur athlete, by denouncing such cases, and therefore, when the growing fame of René Camard, then in the 2nd series of the Paris Championship, earned him requests from several first-division clubs in the summer of 1906, which attempted to attract him in exchange for benefits, and when Camard's hesitation became public knowledge, Weber publicly criticized him of selling his services to the highest bidder.^[20]

In October 1906, the Paris Committee of the USFSA reminded clubs that they must request the requalification of people who have been part of other federations (mainly the FGSPF) before requesting their admission to the USFSA; however, Weber noted that this official statement was nothing, but a "good trick on the FGSPF".^[21] A few days later, the president of the FGSPF Charles Simon visited the L'Auto newsroom to thank him, stating that the "ridiculous decision affecting the members of other federations made by the leaders of the Paris Committee has no value since it does not come from the power leaders of the USFSA", to which Weber later wrote that "we do not defend ourselves against those against whom we do not fear".^[21]

• Sorez, Julien (2013). Le football dans Paris et ses banlieues [Football in Paris and its suburbs] (in French). Paris: Presses universitaires de Rennes. p. 410. ISBN 978-2-7535264-3-3.