SPORTSMEN, managers and even coaches are just soldiers of fortune these days and this weekend couldn't underline the fact any better.

Looking at England's soccer match against Sweden, the rugby union clash between England and Australia and Great Britain's rugby league test against the Kangaroos the feeling the word mercenary should be mentioned recurs far too often.

To be honest the round ball scenario is less insidious as it pits England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson against his home nation.

It had to happen sooner or later, so what better than to stage manage the whole affair -- with all the right pre-match quotes scripted -- than actually dealing with the situation for the first time in the heat of battle in a World Cup or a European Championship.

And the timing is perfect too.

After all the initial vitriol from certain quarters about taking on a national coach who was not English, Eriksson's cool charm has entranced a country who can barely believe that we qualified for the 2002 World Cup without facing a play-off.

So now Eriksson is batting on his own terms and while the questions will be raised about club -- i.e. England -- against country, he will be able to brush them away with the unflappable air of a man who probably just wants to see the back of a fixture that could otherwise have haunted him.

But the fact that he can and will get away with it just shows that professional sport these days is taking quickening steps towards the kind of globalism that the politicians can only dream of.

However, while soccer almost basks in it's multi-culturalism, the two codes of rugby are dealing in a trade that smacks of bare-faced opportunism.

On the union front Henry Paul, all of two weeks into his 15-a-side career with Gloucester, apparently warrants an England squad place.

As an 13-a-side fan I will never question the abilities of a man who I have seen single-handedly strip team after team apart with his tactical knowledge.

Paul, possibly, is better than some of the other options, but pulling the 'I'm English' ticket on the back of Liverpudlian grandparents sticks in the craw.

When he arrived in England he was a Kiwi junior tourist, and in over more than a decade with Wakefield Trinity, Wigan and Bradford he was distinctly a New Zealander despite having set up home in these isles.

If he is so 'English' then why did he take so much joy in hammering Great Britain RL sides while wearing the black shirt with the white V.

But then Rugby League takes it all a few steps further this weekend as the first test against the touring Australians at Huddersfield on Saturday sees Great Britain coached by Australian import David Waite and with Bradford's Michael Withers, another Aussie, in harness.

Irrespective of their respective abilities and professionalism, a quote from former Great Britain star Garry Schofield summed it up for me when Waite took the job.

"I know from playing the Aussies that the last five minutes before kick-off tend to centre on winding each other up about what we were going to do to the (at this point the next ten words are censored) Australians, so I can't see David Waite wanting to be involved in that."