Universality of the rho meson coupling in effective field theory.

It is shown that both the universal coupling of the rho meson and the Kawarabayashi-Suzuki-Riadzuddin-Fayyazuddin expression for the magnitude of its coupling constant follow from the requirement that chiral perturbation theory of pions, nucleons, and rho mesons is a consistent effective field theory. The prerequisite of the derivation is that all ultraviolet divergences can be absorbed in the redefinition of fields and the available parameters of the most general effective Lagrangian.