Sports club

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's Turners movement, first realized at Volkspark Hasenheide in Berlin in 1811, was the origin of the modern sports clubs.

[1] Larger sports clubs are characterized by having professional and amateur departments in various sports such as bike polo, football, basketball, futsal, cricket, volleyball, handball, rink hockey, bowling, water polo, rugby, track and field athletics, boxing, baseball, cycling, tennis, rowing, gymnastics, and others, including less traditional sports such as airsoft, billiards, e-sports, orienteering, paintball, or roller derby.

Many professional sports clubs have an associate system where the affiliated supporters pay an annuity fee.

In addition, there are sports clubs, or its teams, which are publicly listed - several professional European football clubs belonging to a larger multisports club are examples of this (namely, Portuguese SADs (Sociedade Anónima Desportiva) such as Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal, or Spanish SADs (Sociedad Anónima Deportiva) Real Zaragoza, S.A.D.

and Real Betis Balompié S.A.D., as well as Italian clubs like Società Sportiva Lazio S.p.A.).

Exceptions to this include player trades and transfers, athlete loan agreements and unattached trialists.

Catford Wanderers Sports Club is also a multisports organisation, with badminton, cricket, association football and tennis facilities.

In addition, like in several other countries, many universities and colleges develop a wide range of student sport activities including at a professional or semi-professional level.