FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players determine two possible
player statuses: professional and amateur. Criteria that should draw a line between the two statuses, on one hand, seem to be quite simple. A player is professional if (1) has entered into a contract in writing with the club and (2) the club pays the player more than reimbursement of actual expenses incurred as a result of football activities for this club. FIFA, as union uniting football associations from different legal orders, couldn’t choose a greater degree of detail than the one presented in the Regulations. In this regard, the important role of introducing the status of regulatory certainty into the regulation is assigned to sporting jurisdictional bodies that deal with disputes in football, at the top of which hierarchy is the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The specifics of qualifying a status that has a direct impact on the application of most of the rules of the Regulations, provided only for a professional football player, are currently well-established thanks to the long-term practice of CAS.
We will demonstrate the role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport through the main findings of the CAS in connection with determining the status of a professional player.