Boot money refers to money paid privately or anonymously to amateur athletes, often to circumvent laws or league

Sports league

League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...

 regulations prohibiting athlete compensation. It can be paid as an incentive to win or as a reward for a good performance, but especially in more recent times can involve a company

Company

A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...

 rewarding players for using their apparel or products. This phenomenon has been found in amateur sports for centuries. The term "boot money" became popularized in the late 1880s when British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 leagues prohibited professionalism, but it was not unusual for players to find a half crown

Half crown (British coin)

The half crown was a denomination of British money worth half of a crown, equivalent to two and a half shillings , or one-eighth of a pound. The half crown was first issued in 1549, in the reign of Edward VI...

 (two shillings and sixpence) in their boot

Boot

A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....

s after a game (worth around GBP66 in 2009, calculated by the rise in average earnings).

Scandals

In 1982, Adidas

Adidas

Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...

 was paying British Olympic athletes to wear their gear. The main person involved in the scandal was Horst Dassler

Horst Dassler

Horst Dassler was the son of Adolf "Adi" Dassler, who founded Adidas. Horst Dassler started Adidas France in Landersheim, France, competing against his father's Adidas Germany and his uncle's Puma...

.

A similar scandal broke out over payments alleged to have been made to Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

internationals during the 1970s.