What is a testimonial match?

often enabled the honourees either to retire or establish themselves in another line of work once they finished playing. This is still the main objective of testimonials in Australia and some other countries.
In recent years, testimonials have been less frequent, especially in the top levels of European professional football and other sports in which the top players are able to make enormous salaries, many times the average wage.
Today’s top-level players in popular sports often have far less need for the money from a testimonial than players from the past would have.
Also, because of changes in the structure of the professional game, players are far less likely to stay with one club for an extended period of time than in past decades.
Finally, many fans are disinclined to come to testimonials for top professionals, since they are often perceived as giving a huge windfall to a player who most likely does not need the money.
However, testimonial matches for players who have given many years of service to the club (i.e. one club men) and are popular with fans have a higher turnout.
Partly in response to this perception, testimonials in top-level football have increasingly become charitable affairs, where the player gives part or all of the proceeds to one or more charities.
One notable example of a charitable testimonial was that of longtime Sunderland and Republic of Ireland star Niall Quinn in 2002.
Quinn donated all of the nearly £1 million proceeds of a friendly at the Stadium of Light between Sunderland and the Republic to a charitable foundation he started; the money went to children’s hospitals in Tyne and Wear, Ireland and India.
Another, more recent, charitable testimonial of note was that of England rugby player Martin Johnson, held at Twickenham on 4 June 2005.
This event, which featured many rugby union greats (most notably Jonah Lomu), benefited children’s and cancer charities.
More recently, on 4 September 2010, a crowd of 35 682 turned up at Anfield to attend Jamie Carragher’s testimonial match, after 10 years of service to Liverpool and helped to raise more than £1million for Jamie’s 23 Foundation charity. — Wikipedia.