Contract player

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“Pay slip” of a contract player for May 1952. Amount paid out: DM 339.05

The contract player was a player in German football from the Oberliga era until 1963 who was contractually bound to a club for one or more seasons and received financial compensation (officially “compensation”), but was expressly not considered a professional player . Rather, the compensation, consisting of basic remuneration and bonuses, was initially limited to a maximum of DM 320 per month and the player had to provide evidence of an occupation or training. In the 21st century, the DFB also calls professional players without an upper limit on the monthly remuneration as contract players.

Contract player in the league time (until 1963)

The German Football Association issued the contract player statute in the year after the currency reform , roughly at the same time as the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, after the Oberliga Süd had introduced contract football on its own initiative in the 1948/49 season. The Berlin City League did not follow until 1950, while GDR football took a different path (and the clubs from East Berlin had to leave the joint city league).

For the first time since its founding in 1900, the DFB restricted the previous strict insistence on the amateur ideal and allowed a compromise that was an interim solution from the start. The decision was influenced by various (albeit unrealistic) plans to introduce professional games outside the DFB. They already existed in the early 1930s. In the post-war years they were resumed, but they wanted to be prevented. In 1947 a southern German league committee drafted the basic features: “... not professional football in the purest sense, but ´contracted footballers´ based on the Swiss model. So: players with a middle-class profession who, however, receive gaming allowances and bonuses. "This is a" mode that is supposed to put the tricky situation in a better light until the final professional gamble (currency reform?). "However, this larger step should not be included until 1963 follow the licensed player in the Bundesliga . Until then, only the amount of the allowances allowed was gradually adjusted.

In addition to the limitation of the payments allowed to the players (in reality often secretly exceeded) there were further restrictions. For example, a player's contract was automatically extended if it was not terminated by himself or by the club three months before it expired. If the player resigned on time, it was still at the club's discretion whether to release him for another contracting club. If the club did not give the approval, the player had to prove to the responsible DFB committees that he had a valid professional or private reason for a change of location. Otherwise, there was a threat of a ban for the entire following season or the player only had the amateurs, unless he put on the jersey of his previous club again.

Although not accepted as a professional, the contract player lost his amateur status. He could therefore not be used in lower teams of his club. The clubs, in turn, were only allowed to sign a total of six players in the two years 1953 and 1954, and then from 1955 onwards three players from other contract or amateur clubs per season. “Club-owned” amateurs and young people, ie those who were in the club for a certain minimum time, were not counted towards the contingent. The transfer time was limited to six to eight weeks of the summer break, after the start of the season changes in the (consistently small) player squad were no longer possible. These caps were later included in the first Bundesliga statute and only gradually abolished from 1968.

In the national team of the DFB from the restart of the international games in 1950 almost only contract players ran (although national coach "Sepp" Herberger repeatedly used amateurs who played inferiorly, for example Willi Schulz or Herbert Schäfer ). As the first fully professional league of the time came towards the end Horst Szymaniak used then, however, a so-called Italy - Legionnaire . Until then, the few professionals playing abroad - including Bert Trautmann , Ludwig Janda and Horst Buhtz - had not been appointed to the national team. The German contract player later lived in a modified form in the regional football league , later and in part to this day as a contract amateur in the lower divisions.

literature

  • Contract player statute of the DFB from July 9, 1949. In: Hamburger Sport-Mitteilungen. August 1949. Later updates can be found at the same source as well as in the Kicker-Almanach (published annually from 1959).
  • Hans Günter Martin: Germany’s football is making a career. Clubs, players, coaches, goals since 1945. Droste, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-0676-3 . In particular: years of upheaval. P. 57 ff.
  • Lorenz Peiffer, Gunter A. Pilz: Hannover 96. 100 years - power on a leash. Schlütersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-87706-475-2 , p. 132 ff.
  • Bernd Jankowski, Harald Pistorius, Jens Reimer Prüß : Football in the North. 100 years of the North German Football Association. History, chronicle, names, dates, facts, figures. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-89784-270-X . In particular: the big time of the Oberliga Nord. P. 86 ff.

References and comments

  1. ↑ plus travel expenses and meals; Furthermore, the following were allowed: support in special emergencies as well as special bonuses for winning a championship, cf. Contract player statute of the DFB of July 9, 1949, §§ 3 and 4
  2. ↑ Contract player statute of the DFB of July 9, 1949, § 2. - Hannover 96 paid the student Hans Krämer in the 1950/51 season 120 marks per month plus food and health insurance. Only Erich Loth and Ludwig Pöhler received the maximum basic remuneration of 320 marks . The latter came to 455 DM as a foreigner including reimbursement of travel expenses; see. Peiffer / Pilz, p. 137
  3. ↑ Model contract for contract players (status 04/2011) on dfb.de
  4. ↑ "We can therefore expect that the organization of a professional football of tomorrow will pass into the hands of appointed representatives of club sports. This would avoid the threatening split into a purely professional entrepreneurial group and club sport. ” Friedebert Becker : Professional football, yes - but right! In: Sport. No. 29. Munich, 1947, p. 3
  5. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 25, 1947, page 4
  6. ^ Further below in the same Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 25, 1947, page 4
  7. ↑ Details from Martin: Germany's football is making a career. P. 58 f.
  8. ↑ cf. Contract player statute of the DFB of July 9, 1949, § 8