"Shamateurism" in NZ football

The clubs and league are amateur, there is no such thing as semi-professional. It has been misused as a description. There is two types of professional leagues, there is fully professional where every player is paid and the amount is enough for them to live on and just play and train and then there is professional which is more what the National League is doing without admitting the payments. This is where players are paid but not every player maybe paid and/or there is no set minimum etc, it is also unlikely to be enough for the player to just play football and will likely have a second income/job.

Can't find league definitions but for a player https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/admi...

Page 8, Article 2 Status of players: amateur and professional players 

1. Players participating in organised football are either amateurs or professionals. 

2. A professional is a player who has a written contract with a club and is paid more for his footballing activity than the expenses he effectively incurs. All other players are considered to be amateurs.

All very well to say players should be reimbursed but where does the money come from? The cold hard reality is that there is very limited interest in NZ domestic football, and until you can prove otherwise sponsors won't be lining up at the door to fund a league played at suburban parks in front of 100 people

And I must repeat, over and over again, that the use of pokie money to fund National League clubs is based on the fiction that it's going to "amateur" sport. Yakcall's most recent post seems to argue that the clubs and the NL are "amateur" while their first teams are almost certainly entirely professional by that FIFA definition, which I find insane.

Yakcall is a mod, not necessarily   correct . Just an opinion. 

The issue isn't can we afford it - the evidence is that we can - we just can't afford it to be spread across 10 NL teams, 36 NRFL teams, 12? Central League teams etc etc etc.

If paying players was stopped at regional level (somehow - that's a big if) then it should filter up to NL level and the problem of NL teams going broke should be less of an issue.

252 players have been in matchday squads in the national league this year.

How many (if any) do you reckon are "paid more for their footballing activity than the expenses they effectively incur"? Let's use NZF's $250 per week limit as a guide.

The notion that all players are earning a lot of money out of the NL is just not true. For a handful of clubs (probably only 2), they can pay (some of) their players enough that  you could consider it was a full time wage. but to do so, they need to be employed for the club for non-playing reasons. Which is where coaching comes in. But this is definitely not the norm. For the vast majority of players, any payments would be minimal. 

Out of interest, here is the income for the clubs I could find over time. HW and ES are groups with their wider club details so it's hard to pinpoint how much is spent on the national league. So I've plotted the two years before they entered the NL to see how much their income went up.

The league and clubs are amateur, just because we think we know they pay some players and clubs pretend they don't, doesn't change the fact that it is. Wellington Phoenix is the only professional team in NZ, there is no way (not even Auckland City) any other team is professional and paying all their players a professional living wage. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are amateur in that they aren't getting some payment, I'm just saying the clubs and the league as a whole is amateur by FIFA definition in that the major majority of players aren't living off what they are getting paid. 

You posted a FIFA definition of an amateur player. I haven't seen any FIFA definition of an amateur club or league.

Well, that's not what I said, or what the FIFA definition of "professional" is. It's "having a contract and earning more than expenses".

I am going to guess that the ACFC first team all fit that definition, based on nothing but a guess. Is it a good guess, do you think?

This is where the category of "semi-pro" (earning money but not enough to go full-time) would be handy, but it doesn't exist in FIFA. I would like chopah's suggestion that the NL should be semi pro while the regional leagues should be amateur, by that definition. But that brings us back to pokie funding.

That is because there isn't any that I can find, I admit I'm using the assumption that if players in the league are amateur that makes the league amateur.

How amateur players makes an amateur league? This is getting into "angels on the head of a pin" territory :D

We might not know how much various NL players are being paid, if at all; but is it public record whether they sign contracts, the other part of the FIFA definition?

No it's not, any players in ACFC (or any team in the league) that will be receiving more than expenses will be for coaching, that money will likely come from pokies and is very well monitored by the DIA (clubs are regularly audited)

I'll guess that these first team players 'getting paid for coaching' are getting paid a lot more than if the coach wasn't a first team player, in which case it's basically the same as paying them for being a first team player and essentially a rort.

The national body determines whether it is amature or not. From NZF statues "All football Players under the jurisdiction of NZF and its Regional Associations are amateur, apart from limited exceptions set out in the relevant Statutes and Regulations."

Therefore clubs/players playing it in, must abide by the expense incurred requirement. 

I should also point out that recieving prize money, such as that from the CWC, does not compromise their amateur status. FWIW I understand all Teedubs'  CWC money went to paying off their debt. 

It feels like I've gone round in circles, then. This is precisely what I mean by shamateurism - we all "know" that many players in the NL (and some elite players at regional league level) are being paid "more than expenses", but that it's hidden under "coaching fees" or whatever.

We seem to accept that we can't have a decent NL which provides a stepping stone to pro football unless it's at least "semi-pro" by my definition (i.e. "pro" by FIFA definition, but not making-a-living-for-all-players levels of money). But if the NL were pro then the logic for the Phoenix would disappear and so would the pokies money. It's the institutionalised hypocrisy which gets me.

What's the alternative?

If people are getting paid for coaching - and are actually coaching - is that still pay for play neng hidden? Or is that just getting paid for coaching? The national league, the clubs, the players in it, are not professionals. There is this perception that it's all a rort, but it's really not.

Depends on whether the coaching payment is "market rate" or not surely? If they're getting paid way over the odds for what it is then yeah, that's playing payment being hidden.

The only issue I can think of is that the market rate could well be inflated by player payments being hidden, making it a bit of a vicious cycle.

Just playing devil's advocate though, I think the clubs/franchises are doing about as well as they can at the moment, by and large, and the only way we improve it is by talking about it.

The alternative to dishonesty is honesty.

As chopah says, the real issue isn't player payments at NL level, it's player payments at regional level which are unsustainable, and the reason it "spreads" is the fudge factor between professional and amateur football in this country.

There appear to be three mutually contradictory facts here:

1) We can't have a good-quality NL without paying top players "more than expenses", i.e. without pro players under FIFA definition.

2) The NL has to remain officially "amateur" because of the exemption for the Nix / pokie funding / young people wanting to play US college football.

3) Player payments at regional-league level are unsustainable.

how does that work exactly?

Payments at regional level are sustainable if the source of the funding continues and is happy eg  Olympic have paid players for years and can be considered sustainable thanks to their generous supporters - the problem is for the clubs that it isn't sustainable (ie without the money or supporters with money)  for trying to compete for the same players, but thats not a lot different from professional leagues where some clubs have a lot more money than others.

Have a second level Christchurch team doing it at the moment to try get back into the MPL https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/62373223/th...

which bit?  The stopping of payments?  Dunno that's a hard one.

But if we managed that (and realigned the NL season to run across winter and then some) the players who should be playing NL and not regional football would do that and clubs at regional level can focus on development and community.  I know that's pretty fanciful thinking but it would make a massive difference to the talent level of football in NZ if clubs could take "spare" income and reinvest in better coaching, better facilities, better analysis, etc etc in youth.  At the moment any spare money clubs have (some clubs) they throw it at a decent 25 year old player who in most cases will go to another team the following season for more $$.  Even if the spare money is sustainable how as a business model is that sustainable?

Players who don't earn cash to play but do for coaching is fine - problem is that scenario has been muddied over time and now every man and his dog when they hear that scenario thinks its dodgy.

I think this is blinkered to be honest - it's sustainable for a couple of clubs so other clubs feel like they have to spend to get to that level which they can't sustain - Olympic might be fine now but if a new team came and said to all their players we will pay you what you get at Olympic plus more then what to Olympic do?  pay more if they can't afford it long term?  It's an escalation problem because there are no enforced caps on amounts so in an open market it's who can spend the most for the longest.

It's just playing with words though isn't it? Does anyone know of any players that are simply paid a wage to play and don't do any coaching at the club? Let's face it, the perfect world would be that everyone except the Nix played for free and players then stayed at the one club for most of their lives. We wouldn't have imports unless they emigrated or were on a working holiday [a la Riera] and clubs would survive on subs and passing the hat around on game day. When was the last time that happened? long before I started playing senior football in 1973. Does anyone now if the likes of Ronnie Armstrong's father got paid when he played here [ex England international]. I played with and against an ex Crystal Palace player and he certainly wasn't getting paid in the early 70s.

Here is an example of where it supposedly 'working'. $160 a game 'expenses' which is probably close to being OK if you were traveling a fair distance 4 or 5 times a week, paid a gym membership, bought your own boots etc. The $500 bonus is quite obviously not an expense and the CFA guy said they would need to talk tot he club if that was the case. So 2 things here, a club at that level is probably paying a little more than most clubs at a level above and the weekly $ is ok under the current rules and the 2nd is that this club is probably breaking the rules with the alleged bonus payment and the authorities have identified that as outside the amateur rules..

we know your vision will never transpire but would be a better situation

Great topic and discussion though by the way.

There's enough money in football in this country to run a professional team, in terms of sponsors and club funders. But it's tenuous in many ways, and spread out across certain clubs.

I had a guy from a club say last year that if a certain business got in trouble, or the owner suddenly kicked the bucket, the funding that kept their first team going would cease.

Meanwhile TKU and BO are absolutely throwing money at players to get back into the Premier Div, while other clubs are scraping around for money (Waiheke putting videos up asking for financial help).

It's all a bit rotten tbh, the constant search for funding absolutely wrecks your enjoyment of the whole thing.

I think this is the entire point - there are companies and people wanting to give money to football - but not enough to sustain let's say 50 "semi-pro" teams.  If we could funnel that funding into like 10-15 clubs then yes we could have (i think) a pro national league that's played over most of the year and has more than 10 teams.  

A lot of individuals put money in because of a particular affinity with a club and won't put money into some other club

Like someone at Perth once had their family member employed at the club on a ridiculously high wage for doing next to nothing so that the club could stay under a salary cap. Perhaps in our National League some players partners are employed by the club to make match day sarnies?