Money is slowly killing professional sport; the wages players are getting are taking the fun and even the pride away from playing professional sport.
Players are beginning to play just for the money. Some players are even going as far as representing countries other than their homeland, just so they can earn more money.
Players are not playing for the love of a sport any more; they are just trying to make as much money as they can.
Players are quite regularly switching sports nowadays, like Australian sportsmen switching between rugby league, AFL and rugby union, just to make even more money.
One example of this is Israel Folau, who started his career playing rugby league for the Melbourne Storm.
He then moved to the Greater Western Sydney Giants for a stint in the AFL, where he earned $6 million on a four-year deal.
This made him the highest-paid player in the league, but it turned out to be a complete waste of money as he was statistically the worst player in that league.
He has now moved to the NSW Waratahs, an Australian rugby union team, in an attempt to make even more money.
Players switching codes for a short period of time just to make ridiculous amounts of money is ruining sport.
Clubs are wasting their money bringing in new players that may not even be good at the sport and it's teaching kids to just do whatever offers them the most money and not do what they enjoy.
The pride in playing for your home town or country is being taken away from sport.
The amount of money teams pay to bring a player to their club is just ridiculous.
Some football clubs regularly pay around $50 million just for one player.
One million dollars, which is considered a huge amount in a regular person's world, would be lucky to get you a player in the football world.
Regular people work years on end to get a job like a psychiatrist, which can earn you about $600,000 maximum a year, but that is still only a tiny fraction of what professional sportsmen earn.
For example, in the Russian football league, players are paid millions of dollars a year.
One Anzi Machakalaka player, Samuel Eto'o, is paid $20 million a year.
The amounts players are getting paid is just insane.
The fact that you can earn in one game what an average job earns you in a year is ridiculous, no matter how good you are at sport.
To think jobs that save people's lives like doctors and firefighters only get paid a tiny fraction of what some people do for fun is insane.
On the other hand, you might argue that anyone can train to be a doctor but you have to have a lot of natural skill to be a professional sportsman.
Well this may be partially true, but what do sportsmen do to help sick or injured people?
Nothing.
So why should they be paid ridiculous amounts more than jobs like firefighters, who put their lives on the line to save others, or doctors, who save seriously ill people from certain death.
I agree sportsman should be paid a fair amount of money, but seriously, do you really think they should be paid more than someone who saves people's lives?
Sport should be played for the fun and love of it, and for the pride in representing your home region.
It should not be played just to make billions of dollars.
• By Ben Affleck, Year 11, Otago Boys' High School
