Jérôme Champagne  Jérôme Champagne (born June 15, 1958 in Paris) is a former French diplomat who served from 1983 to 1998, and then became a consultant in international football, serving as an executive at FIFA from 1999 to 2010. He transitioned from diplomacy to football as a result of the 1998 FIFA World Cup, where he was Diplomatic Advisor and Chief of Protocol of the French organizing committee. He then joined FIFA where he successively held the positions of international adviser to the President (1999–2002), Deputy Secretary General (2002–05), Delegate of the President (2005–07) and finally Director of International Relations (2007–10) during the terms of President Sepp Blatter. He left FIFA in 2010 and became football commissioner for the World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar (2010) and an adviser to the Palestinian Football Federation (PFA) and the Palestine Olympic Committee (POC), the Football Federation of Kosovo, the Cyprus Turkish Football Federation (CTFA) and finally the Congolese football club TP Mazembe of Lubumbashi. Champagne was twice a candidate to replace Blatter in FIFA's presidency elections of 2015 and 2016. However, each time he failed to secure enough support. Jérôme Champagne was educated at the Lycée d'Arsonval in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés(France) before entering in 1978 at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po) where he graduated in 1981 as well as at the Ecole Nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) . Eligible for the École nationale d'administration in 1982, he joined thereafter the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (France) with the rank of Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Between 1976 and 1983, he was a freelancer for France Football where he wrote in "foreign pages" under the direction of , and . Since childhood, Champagne has been a strong supporter of AS Saint-Étienne. He is married and has three children. In 1983, Jérôme Champagne began a diplomatic career as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. From 1983 to 1997, he was successively cultural and technical cooperation attaché with the Embassy of France in Oman (1983–1984), the third secretary at the Embassy of France in Cuba (1985–1987), technical advisor to the Department of Economic Affairs – section High Technologies – at the Quai d'Orsay (1987–1991), Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles (1991–1995) and First Secretary in charge of domestic policy at the Embassy of France in Brazil (1995–1997) where he received the National Order of the Southern Cross from the hands of Extraordinary Sports Minister at the time, Pelé.