PROFESSIONAL SPORT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13499, 28 May 1907, Page 4

PROFESSIONAL SPORT.

The exclusion of Auckland football players from the inter-island team and from the New Zealand team for Australia, owing to 'their refusal to sign the amateur declaration of the Rugby Union, is ah incident for; which they have nobody to blame but themselves. The action of the Union is so plainly in the interest of the national game that it. must receive the approval of all true; amateurs, , and is particularly entitled, under the . circumstances, to , the hearty endorsement of' Aucklanders. We are not.concerned with the ',-varir ous quibbles by which the difference between professional and amateur players is confused, and are quite prepared to admit that in occasional instances this difference is very unsatisfactory. But there is no difficulty whatever when it is a question of a syndicated, team playing the game for money. That is professionalism, undiluted, and profession-! alism of the most undesirable char-! acter. If permitted to pass without! notice,, the effect upon the national game of New Zealand would be dis| astrous. There are very much more important things; than football, and it is greatly overestimated by many ; \ but it has a great value, for all that, | and we should be exceedingly sorry to see it go the way of all those sports into which professionalism has been allowed to enter. The individual professional player may be! everything that is admirable, but when a game is played for money it becomes as though infected with some demoralising disease. This is known to every sportsman an to every athlete, and is the very convincing reason why all amateur organisations endeavour to keep it in check. The North Island might very 1 much, better lose the inter-island match, with undoubtedly amateur players than win it by the aid of those who are.wavering on the edge of professionalism. .