The problems besetting soccer and the backlash from the Fifa president’s aborted plan to sell the World Cup are fortunately a million miles from the issues current in rugby on the eve of that sport’s biggest event of the year — the tour to South Africa by the All Blacks that starts with the Stormers game on Friday night.Or are they? If you view events on a broad canvas, some lessons are to be taken by the custodians of the oval ball game from what has happened in the realm of Gianni Infantino, not just over the past week but also during the US-hosted World Cup that ended a fortnight ago.It comes down to money. While money may not always be the root of all evil, too much worship of the economic imperative can be the quick way to sell a sport’s soul. The Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series is a great concept, but it is undermined by the fact that it will not be concluded in this country but in Baltimore, US.The series between the traditional powerhouses of world rugby, played every four years, was shaping to be rugby’s version of cricket’s The Ashes when it was first mooted. But imagine the outcry if, on the next England away Ashes trip, the final Test were set not for Australia but for Mumbai. Or, worse still, New York or Hong Kong.There’d be a rightful, angry reaction from the Australian and English cricketing public. Such a thing just wouldn’t be countenanced, and when it was recently suggested by a cricket administrator that the Ashes tap into the Indian market by playing a game there, the UK cricket columnists laughed the idea out of court.We should too when it comes to a four-game series scheduled to be played on South African soil being concluded in the US. If it is 2-1 to the Boks going into that game, the All Blacks should feel they have failed in their quest to conquer the South African frontier. Regardless of what happens next in Baltimore.Conversely, if they are 2-1 ahead going into that game, they’ve emulated the achievement of Sean Fitzpatrick’s 1996 tourists by winning a series in South Africa. By all means, if the money is really that important — and admittedly it is more needed by rugby than the profit-making Fifa bosses — play an exhibition game in the US. At a different time.But playing the potential decider to an SA/NZ series in South Africa in the US just doesn’t cut the mustard. There shouldn’t be a fourth Test; it isn’t the modern way to play a four-Test series, certainly not over consecutive weekends, but if there had to be a fourth, it should have been in South Africa.Ideally, if rugby and not money were the guiding force, after the September 5 game at the FNB Stadium is when the winning captain should hold up the series trophy.So much of the sell of the forthcoming series revolves around an assumed return to old traditions, and yet the scheduling of an extra Test in Baltimore plus the nonavailability of Bok squad players to the URC clubs for their games runs counter to tradition.The old traditional tours, which in terms of an incoming tour ended with the 1976 visit by Andy Leslie’s team (there were only limited tour fixtures in 1996), featured massive games between the All Blacks and full-strength provincial teams.The Stormers team that will host the All Blacks first up on Friday night won’t only be denuded of Boks but will also be made up of URC players who last played a full two months earlier and who should just be starting their preseason training now.And yet the prices for the tour games, which by the way have not been set by the local URC clubs, are exorbitant, with the cheapest tickets rivalling the cost of the most expensive tickets for other games played by those teams.One of the complaints about Fifa is the way that organisation is pricing the normal fan out of the market. South Africa’s rugby administrators should be wary of making the same mistake.