Legitimizing amateur status using financial reports: Victorian Football League clubs, 1909–1912

Abstract

It is generally accepted by historians that in the early twentieth century clubs in Australian Football’s Victorian Football League (VFL) made payments to “amateur” players prior to the legalization of professionalism and that such payments were not disclosed in club financial reports. Previously, financial reports have not been used to support or refute such claims. This article presents findings from a detailed examination of the financial reports and other records of six of the 10 VFL clubs for the years surrounding the legalization of professional football in 1911 (1909–1912). Prior to 1911, most clubs engaged in fraudulent financial reporting practices by misrepresenting player payments as other forms of permitted expenditures, thus concealing prohibited remunerative payments to players within their financial reports. Using isomorphic influences to explain the reasons for this misrepresentation, we conclude that the financial reports were used to legitimate the majority of clubs as amateur organizations. Competing isomorphic pressures, particularly conflicting coercive factors related to the VFL’s prohibition on player payments and normative pressures associated with increasing professionalism amongst players, contributed to clubs engaging in fraudulent financial reporting.