In the Paris Championship, Standard Athletic Club and
Club français finished level on points, so a play-off had to be played to decide the winner. Club français won 3–2. Two northern teams from the Province,
Le Havre Athletic Club and the Nord champion
Iris Club Lillois, faced each other in the semifinal on 19 February 1899 at the
Parc des Princes, with the winner playing the final against the best team from Paris (Club français), but this game never took place due to a grotesque organizational problem: No ball at
kick-off, and when another one was finally found, it was already too late as the game only lasted 45 minutes because of the hockey players who were scheduled to play right after them. The game was thus postponed for 25 March, now in
Amiens, but the northern winners had to forfeit after a flu epidemic of
influenza struck the players, so Le Havre reached the final by default. Club français refused to play the final against a team that had neither been crowned champion of its region, nor won its "half-semifinal", so the Paris club was promptly disqualified and Le Havre was proclaimed the French champions, becoming the first club to do so without having played a single game (similar to
Athletic Bilbao in the
1904 Copa del Rey). ==Tournament==