For over 80 years, from 1900 to 1980, Amateur Nationalteams formed an essential foundation for the development of today's professional football. Efforts are currently being made to give this traditional and proven football format a new and legitimate existence and new splendour.
What follows is a brief review and chronological summary of the history and development of Amateur Nationalteams and current efforts to make the Amateur Nationalteam format sporty and socially acceptable again.
From 1901 to 1938
England and Germany were the pioneers with Amateur Nationalteams with international matches and Olympic participation at the beginning of the 19th century. The development continued until the First World War and nations such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Sweden followed. In the interwar period from 1920 to 1938, other nations such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Romania, Poland and Norway followed suit and also founded Amateur Nationalteams. Amateur international matches attracted up to 100,000 spectators and were very popular.​​
From 1950-1960
In the post-war period, after a break of around 15 years, the Amateur Nationalteams were reactivated in 1952 with international matches and at the Olympic tournaments in Helsinki (1952), Melbourne (1956) and Rome (1960). This was followed by another five-year break for the Amateur Nationalteams.
From 1965-1980
A new format and tournament for Amateur Nationalteams was first proposed by the UEFA Amateur Committee in February 1965, approved by the UEFA Executive Committee and launched in the same year as the UEFA Amateur Cup. However, due to the difficulty of defining what constituted an amateur player, only 12 of the then 33 UEFA nations submitted teams.​
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Undeterred, the 12 teams involved played each other in four qualifying groups of three between February and December 1966, leading to a four-team final tournament in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where Austria beat the Scottish teams 2-1 to win the title 1967.
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Spain triumphed in the second Amateur Cup finals in Forte dei Marmi, Italy, in 1970, while the 1974 final was to prove a non-event – ​​literally – as West Germany and Yugoslavia agreed to share the title rather than play a final.​ Yugoslavia took sole control of the championship in 1978, winning the 1978 edition in Greece.​
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The 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow were the last time that only Amateur Nationalteams competed, and with the professionalization of football in the early 1980s, all associations abolished Amateur Nationalteams.
Since 1996
UEFA launched the Regions Cup for amateur teams in 1996, and since 1999 regional amateurs from purely amateur leagues have participated in it. In the final round of the Regions Cup, which takes place every two years, regional selection teams that have won national qualifiers and an intermediate round compete for the title of UEFA Regions Cup winners. These teams consist of the best amateur players from the regions and do not represent really Nationalteams.
2023/2024
In 2023 and 2024, purely Amateur Nationalteam matches between Austria and Slovenia took place for the first time after a 43-year break. On November 23, 2023 in Klagenfurt, Austria, and on April 2, 2024 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the best amateur players from the highest semi-professional and amateur leagues in both countries competed against each other. Amateurs play in many semi-professional and amateur leagues in Europe, and the best among them are expected to form the next generation of Amateur Nationalteams. Work is currently underway to expand the "Amateur National Teams Back on/to Stage" format, and the first AMATEUR EUROFED CUP 2024 with four to six participating nations is planned for December 2024.​​
Well-known former Amateur Nationalteam Players
A short excerpt of players and coaches who played in Amateur National Teams before becoming international football greats.​
Sepp Maier, Uli Hoeneß, Manfred Kaltz, Jürgen Grabowski, Uli Stieleke, Hans-Peter Briegel, Hansi Müller, Uli Stein, Karlheinz Förster, Othmar Hitzfeld, Helmut Schön, Udo Lattek, Jupp Derwall, Josef Hickersberger, László Bálint, Grzegorz Lato, Oleh Blochin, and many others.
Valuable links and sources on the history of Amateur Nationalteams
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