On-field action has come on massively but questions remain around player protection and the futures of smaller clubs
Twenty-five years ago this week a group of men sat in the Ambassador Hotel on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris and acknowledged the game was finally up. Rugby union could no longer be classed as an amateur sport and payment for playing would henceforth be permitted. When the shaken officials emerged to announce the decision formally, to quote the former Wallabies’ captain Nick Farr-Jones: “It looked like they had just come out of their own funeral.”
One of the English delegates was later spotted standing with his outstretched hands pressed against a wall, rocking slowly back and forth in a headbutting motion. “It’s gone” was the two-word response from Ireland’s Syd Millar to one of his compatriots. Amateurism had resembled a fig leaf with multiple holes for some time but, even so, the abruptness of its demise still came as a slight shock.
Related: Rob Andrew: it was like the Wild West when rugby union went professional
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