Jeff Probyn: Euro row could be start of clubs flexing more muscle

I have a question. Does the word ‘professional’ mean running a business or getting paid, or are they one and the same? I ask this because I am a little confused as it would seem that there is a difference of opinion depending on whether you are a player, an owner or a Union.
For the players, it represents the Oxford English dictionary definition as, ‘a person engaged in a specified activity, especially a sport, as a main paid occupation rather than as a pastime’.
In other words, it enables players to have the chance to do what everybody dreams of doing, spend your days doing what you enjoy, making a living out of your hobby.
It allows them to train and practise to be the best they can be without the compromise of the amateur days when we had to balance our rugby commitments with our careers.
As an owner the word would seem to mean business, a business that if you are lucky you can make it part of your commercial portfolio. You can expect to invest a substantial sum of money with little or no return for the foreseeable future – but with clever accounting you can offset those losses against tax from your successful businesses.
The role of an owner changed dramatically when the game went professional, from a philanthropist with a limited commitment who would help clubs through tough times while putting ‘a bit behind the bar’ for the first team if they won, to the man who funds the day-to-day running of the club.
That is a massive shift in commitment in financial terms for those individuals, many of whom have been members and supporters of their club for years.
For the majority of clubs, the fact that someone had stepped up (even if they had to be cajoled) to take charge and offer a real financial commitment was received with relief, without questioning the real cost to the clubs or the game.
Many clubs signed over the rights to their assets and gave away the ability to choose or maintain the way their club was run.
The new owners (quite rightly after making huge financial commitments) have taken the steps they feel give them the best chance of getting a return on their investment, even if that is not attuned to what is good for the game as a whole.
For the Unions the word ‘professional’ has been a nightmare as they have been forced to accept any number of changes to the game they are supposed to control and nurture.
From the day the game turned professional the Unions have been struggling to finance a professional game as it demanded more and more of the money generated by the international game.
Because the Unions need access to players who are employed by the clubs, they have acquiesced to many of those demands through various guises (EQP, Player release, etc.) to the detriment of the amateur game.
While the RFU and the French Union (FFR) welcomed the millionaires to the game with a relief similar to the clubs, they now know the consequences of their capitulation.
It is my fear the European Cup fiasco will just be the start of a growing power struggle between the Unions and the club owners, who, if they succeed in Europe, would seek to further their control of the game, including domestic and even perhaps international competitions.
It is the difference between what the owners see as the business of rugby and the Unions’ concern with management of the sport that will escalate the conflicts between the two.
To see sport as a business similar to, say, engineering or any other commercial enterprise is to over-simplify it beyond belief. Sport is the stuff of dreams and ambitions and not just for those that take part but also those that support and follow.
It engenders passions and hope in those that play and those that watch that would never be found in any other work place. How many people would pay to watch a pharmacist at work?
Sport attracts otherwise sensible business people to invest in businesses that have little or no chance of breaking even let alone make a profit, people who would never invest in an engineering company with the same balance sheet!
What businessmen in their right mind would invest in a company that spends 89.5 per cent of its turnover on staff costs alone? Put simply, sport does not follow the rules of any business in the commercial world.
Sports governing bodies are always accused of being out of touch but the reality is they are constrained by the needs of the sport they control.
Rugby’s governing body is about encouraging those that are not professional to take part whether as a player or volunteer administrators. Through this they provide the professional game at club and international level with a continual stream of players and supporters without whom there would be no professional game.
It is easy to concentrate just on the areas of sport that make money and forget the needs of the majority of those that take part.
All levels of rugby have people and volunteers who give what they can in time or money to try and help their clubs gain success. The major difference between these people and those that own a professional club is that they aren’t spoiling the game.