In the present article the authors address the issue of a study by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of the regulations of national football associations (including national footballer's associations), as well as the issue of restoring the content of specific contracts in connection with the problem of identifying a player’s professional or amateur status. On the one hand, the national regulation considered by the arbitration to a certain extent affects the pay of footballers, and therefore the corresponding criterion of the player’s status regarding payment for his services. On the other hand, arbitration required to solve the difficult task of establishing the lost content of contracts between the club and a football player, which also indicates the presence or absence of the previously mentioned criterion of football status. In this study, the authors demonstrated the CAS approaches to solving controversial situations in both of the listed cases