Among the practice of FIFA jurisdictional bodies, the cases considered by the Dispute Resolution Chamber are of primary interest to researchers regarding the status of a football player. The jurisdiction of this body includes disputes from the labor relations of clubs and players, as well as disputes in connection with compensation for the training and education of a football player and payment under the solidarity mechanism. In all three cases, in order to resolve the dispute, the Chamber may hypothetically be faced with the need to qualify for the status of a football player: a professional player or an amateur player. In turn, the parties to the dispute argue for and against this or that status. Our appeal to the practice of the Chamber for 2006 - 2019 aims to systematize the material and procedural aspects of determining the status of a player; for this, the study will be divided into two parts and built on the principle of generalization and analysis of practice on specific problem situations: the status of a player and “bridge transfer”; footballer’s agent as a source of status information; the verbal contract of the club with the player; coordination of the parties to the draft employment contract and player status; a fictitious clause on a payroll agreement to a player; salary and professional status; subsequent integration of the player into the club as a professional as a condition of an “unprofessional” agreement; language barrier when a player signs an agreement entailing a player’s professional status; “applicant contract”, “agreement on training and career plan” and approval by the national association / professional league of such agreements as the grounds for the status of a football player; player registration in the national association and status of a football player; “some pocket money, as the club decides” and a reward in excess of expenses actually incurred by the player; compensation by the club for residence and the implementation of other material support necessary for life in the country, as financial conditions that correspond to professional status.