Issue overshadowing sport scholarship (9)
I believe the answer is:
erudition
'scholarship' is the definition.
(I know that scholarship can be written as erudition)
'issue overshadowing sport' is the wordplay.
'issue' becomes 'edition' (edition is a kind of issue).
'overshadowing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (the inserted letters are absorbed or overshadowed).
'sport' becomes 'RU' (rugby union).
'edition' placed around 'ru' is 'ERUDITION'.
(Other definitions for erudition that I've seen before include "Learnedness, scholarship" , "Great learning" , "profound scholarly knowledge" , "Great knowledge" , "Knowledge, learning" .)