Amatör futbolcular gerçekten amatör mü?: Amatör futbolun profesyonelleşme eğilimi üstüne bir araştırma

In Turkey football is the most intriguing sport branch that ensure the growing interest of active participation in amateur football player. It is seen that amateur soccer leagues in Turkey consist of Regional Amateur League (BAL), Super Amateur, First Amateur and Second Amateur leagues. Today which amateur football gains economic value and includes the element of hidden professionalism, it is seen that the concept of amateurism must come up for discussion. Altough amateurism means antiprofessional, it can be seen that in amateur football leagues’ players provide income from this job. The purpose of the research; is to seek answer to the question which forms the basis question of the research “Is there the element of “income” which belongs to occupational property of professional football in amateur football?”. The research consists of two parts. In the first part of the research the concept of amateurism were tried to discuss in relation with different concepts, profession of amateur football player as being a job was examined. In the question application which forms the second part, in 2013 Novemver-December, the data obtained from 148 people who are playing in amateurleagues in İstanbul and Edirne and were choosen by “simple random sampling” method, evaluated by SPSS 17 Statistics Program and were analysed in the form of Frequency Table and Crosstable. The results of the research are as follows: The width of the age group that amateur football appeals is conspicuous (Table 1). % 68 of participants provide income from amateur football. It is observed that top amateur league players provide more income (Table 3 and Table 5). It is emerged that % 66,2 of participants see football as a job (real job+exstra job); players who see football as their real job concentrated on especially in BAL League players; % 29,1 of participants see football as a hobby (Table 4). It is observed that % 73,6 of participants train 3 days in a week and more than 3 days in a week with their teams; 36 people from 37 people playing in BAL league train 5 or 6 days in a week (Table 6). It is emetged that amateur football which shows a feature of an employment area and which can be seen the process of regularly going work and earning income isolated from the meaning of amateurism and includes hidden professionalism.