PAYMENT FOR ATHLETES.

Grey River Argus, 29 November 1927, Page 6

PAYMENT FOR ATHLETES.

Principle of Amateurism.

VIEWS OF A FORMER CHAMPION. The proposal to pay Association Football players for time lost when they take part in the next Olympic Games at Amsterdam has provoked storms of protest, and a great deal of newspaper controversy in the Old Country. The following article on the subject makes interesting reading, more i especially as it was written by George Nicol, former quarter-mile champion of the English Amateur Athletic Association :—

“It has been suggested that the decision of the International Olympic Committee to permit payments to be made to competitors in the Olympic football tournament for loss of time at work is a violation of a vital principle of amateurism. Such is certainly not the case. The ideal amateur is, of course, the man who plays his game simply for the joy of the game, without prize or reward of any kind, and who bears all the essential expense out of his own pocket. Years ago, when amateur sport was confined to men of means and leisure, this ideal was no doubt practical of attainment even in international sport. “The award of prizes of intrinsic value marked, to my mind, the first departure from the ideal. Later, the spread of sport among the less wealthy classes led to the payment of travelling and hotel expenses being sanctioned. The decision to permit payment for broken time is, therefore, no breach of principle. It is merely another step away from an ideal which is no longer practicable so far as international sport is concerned, and, incidentally, a recognition of the increasingly democratic nature of amateur sport all over the world.

“In practically every sport nowadays an amateur is allowed to accept out-of-pocket expenses, by which is generally meant his railway fare and hotel bill. It is the merest casuistry to say that while a man may be repaid; for the railway ticket he purchased and the price of the meals be consumed, he may not, without forfeiting his amateur status, be reimbursed for his lost wages. In the sense of the International Olympic Committee decision the one is as much out-of-pocket expenses, directly attributable to his participation in the sport, as the other. “In neither case is the player making any money out of his sport; on the contrary, he may be losing heavily, for the man who wants frequent days off from business is not popular 'with employers.

“It offends one’s sense of equity that an athlete, possibly an artisan — for many of our greatest athletes arc drawn from that class—who has been selected to represent his country in an international competition, can only accept the invitation at a heavy financial sacrifice. If insisted upon, it will mean that a country will not necessarily be represented by its best men. but rather by those who can afford to foot the bill.

“To see the question in its correct perspective one has only to compare the condition in England with those on the Continent. Here the Saturday half-holiday is fairly general, and most of our games are played on Saturday afternoons. Except in connection with the concluding rounds of the Amateur Cup it is seldom that an amateur football team has to travel more than an hour or so from home. Even the longest journeys do not necessitate taking more than the Saturday morning away from business, the return journey being usually made on Sunday. The question of broken time, therefore, is of quite

minor import:!nee. On the Continent, however, the Saturday’ half-holiday 7 is unknown. Sunday is the recognised sports day, and if a team from, say, Boulogne or Lille is playing at Cannes or Bordeaux, the total time involved in the out-and-homc journey will mean the loss of best part of a week’s work to the play ers concerned.

“It is clearly 7 unfair that a player should be expected to bear the whoh of such loss out of his own pocket, and the International Olympic Committee has at last recognised the fact. The International Football Federation, in tabling the proposition, did not seek to make it obligatory 7 on all countries. It is permissable for the governing body in each country 7 to take advantage of the ruling, or not, as it wishes. Neither has it ever been suggested by the International Olympic Committee that the decision should apply to sports other than football.

Football, by 7 reason of its amazing popularity and its suitability for league and cup competitions, stands in a somewhat different position from other sports. But if and when athletics, swimming, boxing, and other .sports attain the proportions of football, I have no doubt that the precedent laid down in the case of football wil be found very useful. In the meantime, the one really surprising factor in the whole matter is why the International Olympic Committee- did not shelve the question until 1931. “The Amsterdam Games of 1928 which can be covered by 7 all European competitors at the expense of their annual summer holidays, do not present nearly 7 so convincing a case as the Los Angeles Games of 1932, which will in volve at least two months’ absence from business. For, unless I am entirely mistaken in my reading of the position, if some form of monetary compensation for lost time is not sanctioned in all amateur sports in the in terim, there will be precious few European competitors at the Los Angeles Games of 1932.”