Professionalism in association football

History

Association football was first codified in 1863, with the formation of the Football Association (FA) in England. At this time the sport was played mainly by public schools, or teams with public school roots, and amateurism was the norm. This remained the case until the 1880s, when working-class teams began to vie for supremacy. Blackburn Olympic, a team composed mainly of factory workers, won the 1883 FA Cup Final. They were the first working-class team to win the competition since its inception in 1870. Though professionalism was not permitted, Olympic arranged jobs for their players, and supplemented their income with additional payments, a common occurrence among Lancashire clubs.

In 1880, a dispute began between the FA and Bolton Wanderers (founded in 1874), who had unofficially offered professional terms to Scottish players. Scottish players who played in England professionally were known as the Scotch Professors. The subject remained a heated one through the 1880s, directly or indirectly involving many other clubs besides Bolton. Their neighbours, Blackburn Rovers (founded in 1875) and Darwen (founded in 1870) had also signed Scottish players on a 'shamateur' basis using side jobs, either real or fabricated, to facilitate payment. The FA espoused the ideal of amateurism promoted by the likes of Corinthian F.C. from whom the phrase "Corinthian Spirit" came into being.

The differences between the amateur idealists from southern England and the increasingly professionalised teams from northern industrial towns came to a head in 1884. After Preston North End won an FA Cup match against Upton Park, the Londoners protested, seeking the result to be overturned due to the presence of paid players in the Preston ranks. This sparked a series of events which threatened to split the FA. Preston withdrew from the competition, and fellow Lancashire clubs Burnley and Great Lever followed suit. The protest gathered momentum to the point where more than 30 clubs, predominantly from the north, announced that they would set up a rival British Football Association if the FA did not permit professionalism. 18 months later the FA relented, and in July 1885 professionalism was formally legalised in England.

Though English clubs employed professionals, the Scottish Football Association continued to forbid the practice, withdrawing their clubs from the FA Cup in protest against the development, temporarily in 1885 then permanently in 1887. Consequently, many Scottish players migrated southward (although it also meant they were forbidden from playing for the Scotland national team). At first the FA put residential restrictions in place to prevent this trend, but these were abandoned by 1889. In the inaugural season of the Football League (1888–89), champions Preston North End fielded ten Scottish professionals.

One of the teams to benefit from the move of Scottish players to England was Sunderland, located close to the border. The club went professional in 1885, and the club recruited a number of Scotsmen the same year, their first internationally capped players. Founder James Allan left Sunderland in 1888 because of his dislike for the "professionalism" that had been creeping into the club, and subsequently formed Sunderland Albion. The wealthy mine owner Samuel Tyzack funded the professional advancement of the club, often pretending to be a priest while scouting for players in Scotland, as Sunderland's recruitment policy enraged many Scottish fans who supported the amateur ethos. In fact, the entire Sunderland lineup in the 1895 World Championship was made up of Scottish players. On 5 April 1890, the Football League's founder, William McGregor, labelled Sunderland as "the team of all talents" stating that they had "a talented man in every position".

Preston North End, the first English team to win the Championship and Cup "double" in 1889, did so with a majority of their team being made up of Scottish players. In the first season, they went undefeated both in the league and the FA Cup, which led to them being known as "the Invincibles".

The Scottish Football League launched on an amateur basis in 1890 but the nation's most famous club and founders of both the passing and international game, Queen's Park, initially refused to participate as they predicted that professionalism would follow. This suspicion proved correct, with bans issued to clubs for making payments or playing against others who had, and clear indicators that the likes of newly-formed Celtic's accumulation of some of the best talent in the country involved unofficial financial incentives. Faced with this, the Scottish FA lifted its ban on professionalism in 1893, whereupon 560 players were registered as professionals; however, despite the distinction of status between the home players and the England-based players having been removed, it was another three years before the SFA allowed 'Anglos' to play for the national team, prompted by poor results in the British Home Championship. Queen's Park remained outside the league until 1900, and remained committed to the amateur principles even after entering into competition with professional clubs. They never claimed another major trophy, but remained an amateur club until January 2020.

In the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, athletes were presented as amateurs, even if they were de facto professional. Football clubs were no exception, and they were mostly linked to trade unions or government offices, with players being written down as workers of those particular industries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, clubs and players officially gained professional status.

By 2023, the top 3 highest-paid football players in the world (Neymar Jr. from Al Hilal who was earning £240 million per year; Cristiano Ronaldo from Al Nassr who was earning £173 million per year; and Karim Benzema from Al-Ittihad who was earning £172 million per year) were all playing in the Saudi Pro League earning record-breaking salaries.

Timeline by country

This table details the year in which professionalism was introduced, country by country.

See also Professional sports#Association football

References

Works cited

References

1. (9 October 2003). "Baseball or Football: which sport gets the higher attendance?". The Guardian.
2. "FIFA Survey: approximately 250 million footballers worldwide". FIFA.
3. "Overview of Soccer".
4. Guttman, Allen. (1993). "The Sports Process: A Comparative and Developmental Approach". Human Kinetics.
5. Dunning, Eric. (1999). "Sport Matters: Sociological Studies of Sport, Violence and Civilisation". [[Routledge]].
6. (1996). "Catastrophic Injuries in High School and College Sports". Human Kinetics.
7. "TV Data". FIFA.
8. (6 February 2007). "2006 FIFA World Cup broadcast wider, longer and farther than ever before". FIFA.
9. Goldblatt, David. (2007). "The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football". Penguin.
10. Lloyd, Guy. (2005). "The F.A. Cup – The Complete Story". Aurum Press.
11. Davies, Hunter. (2003). "Boots, Balls and Haircuts: An Illustrated History of Football from Then to Now". Cassell Illustrated.
12. (10 January 2018). "A Potted History of Association Football in England". BK … This and That.
13. Goldblatt, ''The Ball is Round'', pp. 46–7.
14. Lloyd and Holt, ''The F.A. Cup – The Complete Story'', p. 22.
15. "History of Football – The Global Growth". FIFA Official Website.
16. [https://www.scotsfootballworldwide.scot/thecross The Cross], Iain Whittle, Scots Football Worldwide
17. Inglis, Simon. (1988). "League Football and the Men Who Made It". Willow Books.
18. Goldblatt, ''The Ball is Round'', p. 57.
19. Days, p. 13.
20. Days, p. 18.
21. Wilson, Jonathan. (25 April 2020). "Sunderland's Victorian all-stars blazed trail for money's rule of football". The Guardian.
22. (2 September 2019). "When Sunderland met Hearts in the first ever 'Champions League' match".
23. Days, p21.
24. Aitken, Mike. (22 March 2008). "Scots passing pioneers shaped football". The Scotsman.
25. (19 February 2019). "The Scottish Professors and their role in football's first Invincibles".
26. Guttmann, Allen. (2007). "Sports: The First Five Millennia". University of Massachusetts Press.
27. Springer, Will. (9 June 2006). "Scotland's amazing role in football's success". The Scotsman.
28. "The Professional Game". Scottish Football Association.
29. "Queen's Park squad offered contracts". BBC Sport.
30. Szlifman, Javier. (21 June 2018). "Football in Russia: From Soviet amateurism to World Cup riches".
31. Washburn, J. N.. (21 July 1974). "Soviet Amateur Athlete: A Real Pro". The New York Times.
32. Rudling, Michael. (23 August 2023). "12 highest-paid football players in the world in 2023".
33. Marc S. Maltby, ''The Origins and Development of Professional Football, 1890–1920'' (New York: Routledge, 1997).
34. John M. Carroll, "Football, Professional," in ''Sports in America: From Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century'' (Armonk, NY: York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011), 361–362.
35. Goldblatt, ''The Ball is Round'', p. 225.
36. (June 2007). "Hungarian Football: A Socio-historical Overview".
37. "bookreader".
38. Goldblatt, ''The Ball is Round'', p. 209.
39. http://www.e-how.com/facts_5347990_history-mexican-soccer.html. History of Mexican Soccer
40. Goldblatt, ''The Ball is Round'', p. 205.
41. (4 June 2008). "Soccer Facts: History and Timeline of Soccer".
42. (2004). "Uruguay 1932 Championship". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation.
43. Bellos, Alex. (2002). "Futebol: the Brazilian way of life". Bloomsbury.
44. "Merhaba Dünya Kupası". [[Turkish Football Federation]].
45. Stokkermans, Karel. (2015). "Netherlands – Regional Analysis". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation.
46. [https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/71542/1/Disserta%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20Sofia%20Carla%20da%20Costa%20Faria.pdf A responsabilidade civil das federações desportivas perante os clubes profissionais pelas lesões dos atletas contraídas ao serviço das seleções nacionais - o caso do futebol profissional] Sofia Carla da Costa Faria. repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt .
47. [http://footballrepublik.com/bundesliga-50-the-birth-of-the-professional-game/ BUNDESLIGA 50 – The birth of Germany's Professional Game.] Christoph Wagner. FootballRepublik.com .
48. (2005). "Amatör eller professionist?". GIH.
49. Lee, Chun Wing. (2013). "From shamateurism to pioneer of Asia's professional football: the introduction of professional football in Hong Kong". Soccer & Society.
50. Jens De Busscher. (2018). "KWANTIFICERING EN EVOLUTIE VAN HET COMPETITIEF EVENWICHT IN DE HOOGSTE BELGISCHE VOETBALKLASSE". RUGent - University of Ghent.
51. (2002). "DBU's historie 1961–1980". [[Dansk Boldspil-Union]].
52. Ian Hawkey. (2010). "Feet of the Chameleon: The Story of African Football". Portico.
53. (1 July 2002). "Fotballproffenes rettslige stilling". Dagbladet.
54. (17 December 1996). "National League all set for kick-off". The Indian Express.
55. (19 April 2019). "Morocco's Abderrazak Hamdallah breaks scoring record in Saudi Arabia". BBC.
56. (2 May 2017). "PFL formalizes its full professional status with GAB sanction". www.dugout.ph.