Issue taking sport to get scholarship (9)
I believe the answer is:
erudition
'scholarship' is the definition.
(I know that scholarship can be written as erudition)
'issue taking sport' is the wordplay.
'issue' becomes 'edition' (edition is a kind of issue).
'taking' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'sport' becomes 'RU' (rugby union).
'edition' going around 'ru' is 'ERUDITION'.
'to get' is the link.
(Other definitions for erudition that I've seen before include "Learning, scholarship" , "Learnedness, scholarship" , "profound scholarly knowledge" , "State of learning or culture" , "being widely read" .)