Amateurs and Professionals

The aim of this lesson is to learn the differences between professional and amateur sports people (Equivalent to UK GCSE Physical Education)

Professionals get paid for playing their sport and for them it is their full-time job

Amateurs don't get paid for playing, they do it when they are not working and because they enjoy it

Money is the basic difference between professionals and amateurs.

Most sports have both professional and amateur components, such as football (the premiership Vs Sunday league!) and Rugby. Some are classed as Open sports, which means both professionals and amateurs can compete together (e.g. golf) and other sports are completely amateur, such as Hockey, where as yet, no players are professional as there isn't enough money available.

The history of professional and amateur sports people comes down to class. Usually professional athletes were from the lower classes because they competed for money, often bets! Amateurs tended to be those who didn't need the money and could afford to play just for fun.

These attitudes towards professional sports people have changed over the years:

The Amateur Athletic Association was set-up in 1880 and no professional sport people were allowed to join
Professional football was illegal until 1884
In 1895 rugby was split into League and Union, with Union remaining amateur
Money from TV deals and sponsorships now means professional athletes can earn huge amounts of money

The Olympic games is probably the biggest example of changes in attitudes towards professionalism:

The Olympics used to only be for amateur athletes
Some athletes started getting paid secretly so that they could still compete at the Olympics
It became very difficult to know who was really an amateur so the IOC dropped the word amateur from the rule book
Governing bodies of each sport in each country, along with the IOC decide who can compete

Professional sports people obviously have more time to train and more money available for equipment and the costs of competing. Some amateur sports people wanted to have these perks, without being classed as professional. There are several ways that people have tried to get around this:

Sponsorships - A company pays the athletes expenses (often much more than they actually spend) in return for the athlete wearing the companies name or logo on their shirt
Scholarships - Some colleges would offer places to talented athletes which allowed them a lot of time to train and to do very little study!
Trust Funds - Any prize money is paid into a trust fund from which the athlete can take living expenses (again more than they really need!) and have the rest when they retire
Gifts - Gifts from companies etc can be sold on to make money, rather than being given money as payment
Token Jobs - A talented athlete may be given a job so that they are classed as amateurs, however the job doesn't involve much actual work and allows them plenty of time to train
Illegal payments - Athletes may be given money on the quiet!

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