FIFA World Cup Question: How much did the winning 1954 German team take home after beating Hungary (3-2). I haven’t found anything online. Was there even a payout?
It seems like they started paying out prize money in 1982.
This PDF from FIFA has a table for prize money going back to 1982. (pg 6-7)
Thanks blue_infinity. That’s solves that mystery!
I think all footballers playing in West Germany then were amateurs, so they wouldn’t have been allowed to accept any prize money unless they played for a foreign club.
According to this site (in German), the German players got DM 500, a TV set and a suitcase from their association, the DFB.
Ok, so not strictly amateur then.
Technically yes, they were all amateurs, but as always there were exceptions, and I think this one time gratification was one of them.
ETA: and let’s not overestimate it. DM 500 was a nice sum in post war Germany, but it didn’t come close to make you rich. A TV set was also costly in 1954 and out of reach for the common German citizen, but just a bit of luxury added to the money. And a suitcase? Well, everybody needs a suitcase sometime… 
, but that’s hardly luxury.
Thanks EinsteinsHund. I couldn’t find it in English.
The rule of letting only amateurs play was, for a long time, a case of great hypocrisy in top-level sports. Many sports associations maintained it as a noble principle, knowing full well that it was often circumvented. The IOC maintained it for a long time, disqualifying one of the world’s leading skiers (Karl Schranz) for wearing a jersey with a sponsor’s logo as late as 1972. But there were ways of circumventing the rule long before that, even though it wasn’t formally abolished by the IOC until the 1990s (it was this move which made the 1992 basketball “Dream Team” possible). So I wouldn’t overemphasise the amateur status of footballers in the 1950s.
Oh I know, absolutely. In this case it would have been a matter entirely for the DFB, since the worldwide sport was professional and no one else would have cared. I actually wasn’t sure how strictly, if at all, the DFB enforced rules of amateurism.
The analogy I was thinking of was Rugby Union which was officially amateur until the 1990s; some national associations were quite bad for enforcing the rules with a sledgehammer. I also remember in the 80s talk of shoolchildren being banned from athletics for being given a bag of sweets for winning a race.