Shamateurism

Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. In the majority of sports which feature professional players, the professionals will participate at a higher standard of play than amateur competitors, as they can train full-time without the stress of having another job. The majority of worldwide sporting participants are amateurs.

Sporting amateurism was a zealously guarded ideal in the 19th century, especially among the upper classes, but faced steady erosion throughout the 20th century with the continuing growth of pro sports and monetisation of amateur and collegiate sports, and is now strictly held as an ideal by fewer and fewer organisations governing sports, even as they maintain the word " amateur" in their titles.

Background

Modern organized sports developed in the 19th century, with the United Kingdom and the United States taking the lead. Sporting culture was especially strong in private schools and universities, and the upper and middle-class men who attended those institutions played as amateurs. Opportunities for working classes to participate in sport were restricted by their long six-day work weeks and Sunday Sabbatarianism. In the UK, the Factory Act of 1844 gave working men half a day off, making the opportunity to take part in sport more widely available. Working class sportsmen found it hard to play top level sport due to the need to turn up to work. On occasion, cash prizes, particularly in individual competitions, could make up the difference; some competitors also wagered on the outcomes of their matches. As professional teams developed, some clubs were willing to make "broken time" payments to players, ''i.e.'', to pay top sportsmen to take time off work, and as attendances increased, paying men to concentrate on their sport full-time became feasible. Proponents of the amateur ideal deplored the influence of money and the effect it has on sports. It was claimed that it is in the interest of the professional to receive the highest amount of pay possible per unit of performance, not to perform to the highest standard possible where this does not bring additional benefit.

The middle and upper-class men who dominated the sporting establishment not only had a theoretical preference for amateurism, they also had a self-interest in blocking the professionalization of sport, which threatened to make it feasible for the working classes to compete against themselves with success. Working class sportsmen didn't see why they shouldn't be paid to play. Hence there were competing interests between those who wished sport to be open to all and those who feared that professionalism would destroy the 'Corinthian spirit'. This conflict played out over the course of more than one hundred years. Some sports dealt with it relatively easily, such as golf, which decided in the late 19th century to tolerate competition between amateurs and professionals, while others were traumatized by the dilemma, and took generations to fully come to terms with professionalism even to a result of causing a breakdown in the sport (as in the case of rugby union and rugby league in 1895).

Corinthian

''Corinthian'' has come to describe one of the most virtuous of amateur athletes—those for whom fairness and honor in competition is valued above victory or gain. The Corinthian Yacht Club (now the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, RCYC) was established in Essex in 1872 with "encouragement of Amateur Yacht sailing" as its "primary object." To that end, club rules ensured that crews consisted of amateurs, while "no professional or paid hand is allowed to touch the tiller or in any way assist in steering." Although the RCYC website derives the name ''Corinthian'' from the Isthmian Games of ancient Corinth, the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' derives the noun ''Corinthian'' from "the proverbial wealth, luxury, and licentiousness of ancient Corinth", with senses developing from "a wealthy man" (attested in 1577) through "a licentious man" (1697) and "a man of fashion about town" (1819) to "a wealthy amateur of sport who rides his own horses, steers his own yacht, etc" (1823). Dixon Kemp wrote in ''A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing'' published in 1900, "The term Corinthian half a century ago was commonly applied to the aristocratic patrons of sports, some of which, such as pugilism, are not now the fashion."

The "Corinthian ideal" of the gentleman amateur developed alongside muscular Christianity in late Victorian Britain, and has been analysed as a historical social phenomenon since the later 20th century. The Corinthian Football Club founded in 1882 was the paragon of this. In the United States, "Corinthian" came to be applied in particular to amateur yachtsman, and remains current as such and in the name of many yacht clubs; including Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club (founded 1874, added "Corinthian" to the name in 1881) and Yale Corinthian Yacht Club (likewise 1881 and 1893).

Present day

By the early 21st century the Olympic Games and all the major team sports accepted professional competitors. However, there are still some sports which maintain a distinction between amateur and professional status with separate competitive leagues. The most prominent of these are golf and boxing. In particular, only amateur boxers could compete at the Olympics up to 2016.

Problems can arise for amateur sportsmen when sponsors offer to help with an amateur's playing expenses in the hope of striking lucrative endorsement deals with them in case they become professionals at a later date. This practice, dubbed "shamateurism", a portmanteau

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