Red Star FCRed Star FC was founded on 21 February 1897 in Paris by Jules Rimet, then a law student who, a couple of decades later, went on to lead FIFA and originate the first World Cup, which was named the Jules Rimet Trophy in his honour. The club's co-founder was Charles de Saint-Cyr. The team's name has nothing to do with communism or revolutionary symbolism, as is sometimes mistakenly assumed — according to club legend, it was suggested by Miss Jenny, housekeeper to the Rimet family, in reference to the Red Star Line, a Belgian shipping company that carried European emigrants to America.
Red Star ranks among France's oldest football clubs, and as early as 1904, under Rimet's leadership, it was promoted to the top division of the era's governing federation. The club's golden period came in the 1920s and 1940s, when it won the Coupe de France five times — in 1921, 1922, 1923, 1928 and 1942 — a haul that still ranks it among the five most successful clubs in the competition's history. More than eighty years have passed since that last triumph without a further cup success.
Despite its rich history, Red Star has spent only 19 seasons in France's top division, its last spell in the elite coming in the 1974-75 season. Since then, the club has fluctuated between the lower divisions, while remaining a living symbol of the working-class, left-leaning identity of the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen, where it has been based since 1909.
The team, nicknamed L'Étoile Rouge (The Red Star) and Les Audoniens, plays in its distinctive green-and-white colours and contests its home matches at the iconic Stade Bauer, a venue that hosted football matches during the 1924 Paris Olympics.