KEY POINTS:
What am I bid for this top class sportsman?
Roll up, roll up ladies and gents: let's hear your bids. Cricketers? Shall we start at 1 million ($2.8 million) for six weeks, the sum England all-rounder Freddie Flintoff is said to be picking up from India's IPL?
Soccer players? How about Manchester City's abortive 500,000 a week bid for AC Milan's brilliant Brazilian, Kaka.
What of rugby players? Luke McAlister can choose between moneybags French club Toulon and the All Blacks. Toulon, estimates suggest, will happily fork out around 700,000 for a couple of seasons of McAlister's services.
Meanwhile, three England players announce their decision to walk out of the London Wasps rugby club at the end of the season, the most successful in England these past years, for the greater riches on offer in French rugby where no salary cap exists.
The whole sporting world has become completely and utterly infected with the bite of money. It has spread like a plague and is rapidly becoming sport's sole modus operandi.
Cricket, a sport that once offered entire countries a blueprint for manners, decency, behaviour and a sense of fair play, seems to have prostituted itself in this respect. How crass, how depressing.
How encouraging then to pin down one All Black and get a direct answer to a direct question. What would you choose of these two options, I asked Blues wing Joe Rokocoko in Cape Town this week. Take your pick, make your choice.
You can either stay an All Black through to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Or you can collect a fortune, probably the better part of 1 million for a three-year deal with a top English or French club. What's your decision, Joe?
On the face of it, the portents are not great. Rokocoko and his wife celebrated the arrival of their first child last weekend, always a time when a young sportsman starts to think of his family's future. Which these days inevitably means just one thing - scrambling aboard the money ship and setting sail for the Northern Hemisphere.
And why not, you might think? Rokocoko will be 26 this June. He's won 52 Test caps and has been playing international rugby since 2003. He's won Tri-Nations titles, been to World cups and visited most of the great rugby-playing nations of the world. What is more, he was on the phone to Doug Howlett in Ireland just a few days ago. Dare you read more?
Actually, the answer is yes. It is hugely encouraging given the way so many international sportsmen are now putting themselves at the beck and call of the money men. The good news is, the Rocket Man isn't interested in joining them.
"If I had a choice between a contract in England and playing for New Zealand to the next World Cup I would definitely go for the World Cup. Whatever the money ... of course, the World Cup depends on how I am playing before then. If I feel I can't put enough into the black jersey or any other team, then the other options obviously come into it.
"But above all, I am still happy in New Zealand. The passion hasn't died. I am still driven to be an All Black every year; that remains my main goal. And I don't just want to make the numbers again - I want to deserve to be in the team. It is important to have that attitude. That is my first goal.
"My appetite for playing and achieving in Super 14 and then All Black rugby is just as strong as it ever was. I still enjoy it. I've had injuries in the last couple of years but the positive thing that has come out of that is you get to have a rest and reignite yourself again.
"I am still hungry, still passionate about playing in any team in New Zealand and for New Zealand. I feel I am still young enough to do that."
Rokocoko is not a young man who allows himself to get too far ahead. "I always feel each year is a new year, a new beginning. My attitude is, whatever I have achieved before, just ignore it, forget about that. Because if you think only about that, you will lower your own self-esteem and confidence.
"I've had a tough couple of years with injuries. But I set out each week to have new standards, new goals. And I concentrate on the little things to try and improve me as a player."
Rokocoko does not deny the litany of injuries has frustrated him. He talks of having to keep going back to zero, as if he were describing a game of Monopoly. Last year, he was feeling really good until injury forced him out of the remainder of the Super 14 season and then Tri-Nations.
"The hardest part is when you're recovering and your body feels great, you really want to get back into it. But you've got to be real smart with these injuries. I was itching to come back earlier than I did last year but the medical staff told me I'd sacrifice three months if I returned two weeks too early. So you have to be patient."
When he's fit and well, Joe Rokocoko continues to look one of THE great athletes and players of this game. Lean, lithe, tall and strong, he offers a significant threat to any defence the world over. His try-scoring efforts and achievements are legendary, from Cape Town to Canberra and on to Christchurch.
But maybe what is just as great an image of Rokocoko is the smile. It was in plentiful supply in Cape Town this week, matching the brilliant sunshine. Pride at being a new father ? Of course. And, of course, one day, Joe Rokocoko may accept an offer to follow so many of his fellow countrymen overseas. There is no crime in that in a professional sport.
But it has to be a considerable re-affirmation of the values some young men still retain in this increasingly money-mad sports world to hear someone like Rokocoko putting the honour of the All Blacks ahead of a bulging wage packet. Has that simple black rugby jersey ever carried so high a premium?
