A Brief Introduction to Football Transfers and Amateurfussball

An outsider may consider football transfer as a complex task full of ambiguity and conspiracy. Really speaking, football transfers mean transferring or relocating a football player under contract between professional clubs. It involves the transferring of a player’s registration from one professional association football club to another. Usually, the transfer of football players can happen only during a transfer window and according to the rules laid down by the governing body. Transfer window signifies the period of the year during which a football club can transfer their players from other countries into their football teams. Registration through FIFA is mandatory in order to complete such transfer officially. Actually, “transfer window” is the informal term that is often used for the concept of “registration period” as described in the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Player. According to the FIFA guidelines, every national football association decides on the time of the window, but it has to be within a period of 12 weeks. The second registration period occurs during the season and should not go beyond four weeks. The transfer window of a given football association regulates only international transfers into that football association. International transfers out of an association are always possible for associations having an open window. Amateurfussball is a type of football in which the players mostly engage voluntarily without any kind of remuneration. The Amateurfussball combination is among the biggest adult football leagues in Europe. It has about 100 clubs and 350 sides playing on Saturday afternoons and in and around London and Home Counties from September to May. There is a county football association in England named Amateurfussball Alliance. This association was established in 1907 as the Amateurfussball Foundation; it was later changed to Amateurfussball Association because FA required all county associations to admit professional clubs. This foundation was founded at the critical time when the decline of amateurism was at its peak, and the aim of this foundation was to protect and preserve the authentic amateur spirit of football. The foundation is known for the skill and competitiveness of its leagues and its convention of fair and unprejudiced play as well as sportsman spirit. The German Amateurfussball championship was a football competition in Germany that existed from 1950 to 2000, organized by the German Football Association, the DFB. To qualify for the German amateur championship, a club had to play in the highest amateur league of its regional football federation, out of which the majority were tier-three leagues. The championship was established in 1950 as a counterpart to the German football championship, which was open only to the tier-one Oberligas winners. A club was required to win its highest local amateur league in order to qualify for the amateur championship and then it hasn’t to participate in any post-season promotion round. A club could also decline to take part in the promotion round and play in the amateur championship instead.