THE SIZE OF THE PURSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17345, 27 September 1924, Page 8

THE SIZE OF THE PURSE.

Again at Home, a discussion is raging on the advantages and disadvantages of professionalism in sport. It is contended in some quarters that football, cricket, tennis and boxing stand to gain rather than to lose from the competition with amateurs of men who arc paid to keep up their form and exert their skill. One result mentioned is the prevention of slackness. Arguing hotly on the other side of the question, are the critics who hold that once money is paid to a player, the sport affected begins on the down-grade. Abuses creep in, disputes arise, and the spectators too often have reason for believing Ibat the result would have been different under strictly amateur rules.

Boxing is singled out as a pastime with a chequered past and a chequered present. The cause is put down by many London sporting authorities as “ swelled heads caused by swelled gates.” The English cricketers, now on their way to Australia, arc to he paid their travelling expenses and £IOO each. A lew weeks ago, two boxers, Gibbons and Bloomfield, stood to win £IO,OOO between them

over one fight, which, as it happened, lasted only a few minutes. “There arc some tremendously false values somewhere behind these two facts,” said a London newspaper at the time. “ Are any two boxers worth a hundred times as much to the individual looker-on as are, for example, Hobbs at the wicket, Newman at the billiards table, or Grimsdell in a football match?” Whichever way this question is answered, it can almost he accepted as a fact now that the day of the “big purse” boxing match is on the wane. Eight promoters and their hirelings are coming to realise that the sport would he healthier if charges were reduced, and the number of bouts between first-class boxers increased. If that sentiment spreads, wc shall sec Dempsey engaged not once a year for £50,000, but live times a year at £SOO a time. As for the larger question of professionalism, the best plan seems to he to take every possible measure to prevent a spread, and, in games where it is now firmly rooted, insist on control by amateurs, a policy that has met with some success in the government of English cricket by the M.C.C.