ABSTRACT
On 27 August 1995, almost exactly a century after the schism between (amateur) Rugby Union and what became (professional) Rugby League, the International Rugby Board voted to allow professional players in Rugby Union. Only slightly fancifully, perhaps, this might be compared to the fall of Byzantium in 1453: in both cases the event had been predicted for a long time, but still seemed unexpected when it finally happened; in both cases powerful commercial forces were released or redirected. The world, in each case, was neither to be nor to seem to be the same again. Less fancifully, we can see that what fell in each case was a last bastion: Byzantium itself was all that remained of the Eastern Roman Empire while Rugby Union was following athletics, tennis and the Olympic movement down the road to professionalism. In making their decision the International Rugby Board were conceding the demise of the ideological hegemony of amateurism in sport which had lasted for a century, but had been in decline for the last third of that century.
