3. Learning Objectives
• What does amateur & professional
mean?
1. Who decides?
2. Are top amateur really not paid?
3. Why keep the distinction between the
two?
4. Amateurism & the Olympic Games?
5. The story of Rugby League & Rugby
Union.
4. The important facts
• How do you tell who’s amateur & who not?
• Amateurs don’t get paid for playing the
sport.
• Professional play full time & get paid for
it?
• Semi-pro’s are like professionals but play
only part time & have another job to.
5. Who decides?
• The individuals sports international
governing body.
• Many sports divide players clearly into
professionals & amateurs.
• In some sports most athletes, even the top
ones, are ‘amateurs’
• Another sports are open. A&P can
compete freely in most events.
7. Are top amateurs really not paid?
• To be a top athlete you need to commit
yourself full time to your sport. But if
you’re not allowed to earn money from it,
how do you survive?
• Scholarships & Grants
• Jobs
• Special training camps
• Trust funds
8. Why keep the distinction?
• Top ‘amateur’ get paid indirectly. Which
means……
• The distinction between A&P is a fuzzy
one.
• So why not just drop it & make all sports
open???
• MONEY
9. MONEY
• Would be the main reason competing.
• Athletes would do anything to win.
• The idea of fair play would go out the
window.
• NGB’s might lose control of their sports to
commercial organisations.
10. Amateurism & the Olympic Games
• Its meant for amateurs. TENNIS 1920’s
• But many athletes are not truly amateurs
as rewarded when they return home.
• 1981 saw the term ‘Olympic amateur’
dropped from the rules.
• TENNIS 1988
• The only prize of offer at the Olympics are
the MEDALS
11. • The International Sports Federations have
the final say.
• Some sports uphold the amateur ideal
more strictly than others
• Pro football can take part.
• Pro boxers can’t.
Decision Time
12. • Rugby began at Rugby School. The rules were laid
down in 1846. By 1881 Rugby Union governing
bodies had been set up in England, Scotland &
Wales.
• But in 1895 Rugby League was born when 22
northern clubs broke away. There players wanted
compensation for the time spent away from work,
training and playing. Rugby Union refused them.
• Rugby League became the professional game, and
developed its own rules over the years.
• Then in 1995, a hundred years later the RFU finally
backed down & let professional players in.
The story Rugby League & Union
