Alexandre Villaplane: French Football’s (In)Famous Fascist
Of the 13 men who hold the distinguished honour of captaining their nation at the inaugural 1930 FIFA World Cup, one of them stands alone as completely undeserving of that honour.
That man was France captain Alexandre Villaplane, an Algerian-born French midfielder. Villaplane won 25 caps for his country in only a four-year international career. He described captaining France as “the happiest day of his life.”
On the 80th anniversary of his death on Boxing Day 1944, The Sports Gazette revisits one of the most horrific narratives in all of footballing history in the story of Football’s most infamous French Fascist.
Sewing the Seeds
Villaplane moved away from his native Algeria in 1921 at the age of 16 to the South of France where he soon signed for his first club, FC Sete. After a few good years at Sete he would move to their prestigious rivals Nimes for a higher salary and almost immediately became a star player for them. Nimes fans were particularly appreciative of his drive, desire, aerial ability and strong challenges.
As his career progressed, including at international level where Villaplane shone for France, it seemed that his attention was increasingly turning towards money rather than football. His enthusiasm for the sport seemed to be waning, replaced by insatiable greed.
By the time the 1930 World Cup came around, which he captained France at before retiring after the tournament ended, he had already changed club again to Racing Club Paris. Villaplane was now employed and living in Paris whilst being paid handsomely, having spent his life in France up to that point living in the South.
Paris
This provided him an opportunity to flaunt his wealth and flaunt he did, frequenting casinos, cabarets and horseracing tracks. These were the places where he made himself known to the unscrupulous characters of the Parisian underworld, connections which he would use later during WW2. The City of Light now harboured a dark character indeed.
Football quickly took a backseat in Villaplane’s mind after this and he was soon involved in a match-fixing scandal at Antibes, the club he joined after RC Paris. By the time he joined penultimate club Nice, he wasn’t the player he once was, regularly missing training and showing up late.
This was a pattern which would follow at his final club second-tier side Hispano-Bastidiene Bordeau where he was released after three months for the aforementioned reasons. This is when he properly and fully turned to the crime he had engaged in sporadically towards the end of his footballing career.
After Football
The illegal activities he engaged in while he was playing would pale to what he would do following his retirement, however. He started by trying to fix horse races, for which he was jailed in the mid 1930’s, a small taste of what was to come.
In June 1940, Villaplane’s motivations changed and opportunities for crime increased exponentially following the Nazi invasion and taking of France and, more specifically, Paris.
Before he could engage in his most heinous acts, however, he was arrested more than once during the war for possession of stolen goods, in particular gold and more precious materials.
The War
Following his release Henri Lafont, one of Paris’s most notorious criminals, recruited Villaplane into his French Gestapo and Villaplane was all too eager to join, following the money as it were.
The French Gestapo were dedicated to opposing the French Resistance and carrying out the occupying Nazi’s bidding. They started off by racketeering and trying to seize control of black and Jewish owned businesses.
Villaplane also started to become involved the Paris black market, selling what he stole to garner himself even more wealth. His greed knew no bounds and when combined with his malicious streak, it formed a perfect storm that the French Gestapo took advantage of.
As the war progressed, he would become more heavily involved, and in early 1944 he would command a unit of soldiers in the Brigade Nord-Africaine (BNA) division of the French Gestapo. He would gain the rank of SS sub-lieutenant through this command and garner himself the nickname ‘SS Mohammed.’
The Worst Was Yet to Come
Villaplane’s unit were renowned for their cruelty culminating in the Mussidan Massacre in June 1944 in which 52 people were killed, 11 by Villaplane’s unit, and it is said that Villaplane himself pulled the trigger at least once.
Soon after this however, the Allies liberated France in August 1944. Villaplane was one of the key members of the French Gestapo who were rounded up and put on trial for innumerable crimes.
Villaplane, shortly after Mussidan, sensing the impending Allied victory started to treat captured prisoners more favourably. Not because he had suddenly grown a conscience, however, but because he wanted to secure the best possible situation for himself after the wars end.
This plan didn’t work, and the man who had once been a beacon of hope for French football, the ‘Platini of the 1920’s’ was executed for treason four months later by firing squad on Boxing Day 1944.
Arguably, Villaplane is the most despicable human to have ever laced up a pair of boots. He betrayed the very nation he represented with such elegance fifteen years prior to his death in one of the most vitriolic ways ever.
Captaining France at the first World Cup, and even his career as a whole, is just a footnote and an afterthought to what came after he left the Beautiful Game; a nickname which his mere existence in the sports illustrious history tarnishes.
