THE FOOTBALL FIGHT IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 20

THE FOOTBALL FIGHT IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

The latest fusion —a sporting one —is quite as curious as that which brought the conflicting political elements led by Messrs Deakin and Cook together some time ago, comments the Sydney Sun. The Rugby Football Union and the Australian Rules League have combined for the purpose of cornering the best playing grounds around Sydney. They have declared war to the knife against the Rugby League, and are taking what they consider the most effective means of combating the growing popularity of the Northern game—which happens, by the way, to be a sort of Luther Burbank cross between the two games. Workinowith these two strangely antagonistic bodies are said to be the Metropolitan Bugby Union, the British Football Association, the New South Wales Hockey Association, and the City and Suburban Rugby .Union. The willingness of the authorities governing the Australian game to side with a sporting body that has hitherto been openly and frankly hostile towards them ie remarkable. It is even more extraordinary, however, when one considers the different opinions held by the two bodies on the question of amateurism, the rock on which New faouth Wales football split a year or two ago. The Rugby Union interpret the term m its narrowest sense, while the governing bodies of Australian Rules Football in the four other States in wh;ch the game is supreme, take a tolerant view of the question of players' expenses. In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, where the Australian game is practically the only game, it has been recognised that m order to maintain a high standard, some concessions are necessary in the case of men who cannot afford to forfeit their wages when taking part in an interstate or other extended tour. These men are reimbursed for what they lose by temporarily relinquishing their occupations, while the travelling allowances and pocket money are sufficiently liberal to prevent their being out of pocket when they go away. The Rugby Union, on the other hand, not only declines to make up the wages lost, but is also niggardly —in the interests of amateurism, of course —in the matter of incidental expenses, that players who have not a solid financial backing, or whose employers are not enthusiastic to the point of allowing them leave on full pay, are debarred From taking part in matches far away from home. How the Australian Rules League will be able to reconcile the position they have taken up with the leagues in the other States is __ difficult to imagine. The League officials profess to be unconcerned about the combine which has been formed with the object of squelching their game, and considering the popularity of the game there would seem to be little reason for anxiety. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of this latest move, which the sporting public deplore. Amateurism in sport is something worth fighting for, but it should be a commonsenfie amateurism and not the sort that imposes such snobbish restrictions as those declared to be necessary by the Rugby Union. Some reasonable compromise should have been possible between the organisations now at one another's throats. Is it too late even now to arrange a basis of settlement that would be satisfactory to the supporters of football, who are, after afi, the people who have the greatest claim? Such an arrangement would necessarily involve the payment of expenses sufficiently liberal to prevent the exclusion of fijst-class players who are unable and unwilling to make the absurd sacrifices demanded by the' advocates of militant amateurism.