IT'S NOT fashionable for organisers of sports events to put their shoulders to the wheel of the tobacco industry in the argument over sports sponsorship. Caught between the enormous amounts of money the industry can spend and the proven damage smoking can do to the health of the participants, sport and tobacco have always been uneasy bedfellows.

That said, the biggest sports events in Ireland have never shied away from lending their name and image to the tobacco firms. Nor, with very few exceptions, have sports pages in national newspapers and magazines bothered to say no to the advertising revenue they can attract from the increasingly restricted industry.

But more and more governments are closing the net on tobacco sponsorship of sport. This week the British Labour government have threatened to totally ban tobacco sponsorship in sport and the tobacco industry knows that it is a catching trend. The effect on British sport will probably be around £9 million a year. They may soon have to look for the money elsewhere.

As restrictions tighten on the tobacco companies in terms of what and how they are allowed to sponsor sports events, the symbiotic relationship between the two bodies looks certain to come to an end.

The Benson and Hedges Irish Masters snooker event at Goffs is becoming increasingly like the last dodo. No other major Irish event now is backed by a tobacco company. In cricket, the Benson and Hedges trophy is contested by an Irish team and is played in Irish cricket grounds but the competition is essentially an English Counties championship which permits the inclusion of Ireland and Scotland.

In the 1980s top showjumpers Eddie Macken and Paul Darragh had horses sponsored by Carrolls and the clock which timed the rounds also travelled around the country to maximise the association between Ireland's greatest riders and the product.

The Irish Open golf event was for many years a large recipient of Carrolls sponsorship money, as was the annual GAA All Stars awards. As it stands now, the Irish Masters is healthy but the forced cuts being made to the amount of money Benson and Hedges can pump in may kill the sponsorship in the end. It is a matter of time.

From 1985 the sponsorship spent by tobacco companies in Ireland was allowed to increase only at the rate of inflation. Even that was a major handicap for the industry. In 1996 the Control of Advertising, Sponsorship and Sales Promotion Regulations cut maximum allowable expenditure by five per cent a year.

At Goffs this year the sponsor's sales and marketing director, Nick Robinson, said the company might not be able to sustain the sponsorship of the tournament if their budget was to continue to be cut by five per cent a year. In the real world, as appearance fees and prizemoney goes up according to the global market, the sponsors would have had to increase - not cut - the money every year to maintain the event's high profile.

Robinson's hinted pessimism is reflected in the Department of Health's policy statement on tobacco advertising which is in favour of the European Commission's desire to introduce a community-wide ban. It is a position that has been taken by successive Irish Health Ministers.

But that is not the only curtailment. Articles 22 and 23 of the act which deals with the sponsorship and advertising of tobacco, specifies that advertising can only take place in newspapers and magazine publications directed primarily to people over 18 years of age; at the place of the event but not on or along any public road; and internally in premises which are points of sale of tobacco products but not by visual electronic media or sound.

It also states that an advertisement shall not contain anything other than the name of the event, the written description of the product and the name of the sponsor and corporate emblem.

The importance of this is that companies have always seen sponsorship as an ally to direct advertising. Sponsorship is cheaper and has certain strengths but it is less focused.

In tandem the tobacco industry can only sponsor events they have sponsored in the past, which means they are limited to a narrow band of sports. That restriction also means that the industry cannot capitalise on expanding markets where sports have become vastly more popular than they were 10 or 15 years ago. Rugby union would be a prime example.

The Irish tobacco manufacturers advisory committee argue that tobacco companies serve a useful function in staging international events and claim that sponsorship such as the Irish Masters snooker does not impact on the overall consumption of tobacco but merely identifies the brand for market-share purposes.

In other words, the sponsorship is not necessarily designed to encourage non-smokers to begin smoking but it might persuade current smokers to switch from the brand they smoke to the sponsor's brand.

That thought process was also in the mind of Gallagher's spokesman Colin Stockhall, who told the London Times this week: We take the opportunity to defend sports sponsorship because we believe there is no convincing evidence that sponsorship causes anybody, to actually start smoking.

Dr Fenton Howell of ASH, the anti-smoking lobby, totally rejects such reasoning. "It's a pathetic response," he said. "You cannot promote the brand without promoting the product. It applies to all products, not just tobacco.

"To associate tobacco with snooker or something like Formula One racing conveys pleasure and social acceptability. It's aspirational and daring and suggests a sense of well-being and sophistication that does go along with the product. It associates it with youth and it invites smoking.

"The industry needs to recruit 25 people a day to maintain market share because between 17 to 20 people die each day due to proven smoking diseases. Another few give up smoking. As well as that 80 per cent of smokers start before they are 18, so to say they are not reaching children is laughable.

Recently the American company Liggett actually admitted in a court case that smoking is cancerous, addictive and that they do target children."

THE DEPARTMENT of Health say that a unilateral ban on events sponsored by tobacco companies would cause difficulties because of the overspill into Ireland from print media and sports' broadcasts from outside the country.

Most of the English newspapers are sold in Ireland and some outlets also carry a number of the European titles. A large portion of Irish viewers are also able to watch British and European television channels which makes it difficult for any type of restriction to be put in place apart from something centrally controlled at a European level.

The problem stems from the fact that individual EU countries have different legislation in place and outside Europe, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, the restrictions are much less stringent. Motor racing grands prix in England, Germany and France already include a ban on tobacco logos but they can clearly be seen in the televised races from Monte Carlo and Brazil.

Only six countries have imposed bans on sports sponsorship by tobacco companies. The first to do so was Norway in 1975, followed by Finland in 1977.

In 1989 Canada tried to impose a ban but it was narrowly overturned by judges for breaching the constitutional right to flee speech. Legislators are currently working on a new wording.

New Zealand banned sports sponsorship in 1990 and increased taxes on cigarettes to replace the money lost by the sports events, and Australia imposed a federal ban on cigarette sponsors in 1992. The legislation phased out the sponsorship of events by the mid-1990s but allowed existing contracts to run their full course.

The Australians also replaced the tobacco money with a tax which was used to promote cultural and sports events, something ASH's Dr Howell would enthusiastically endorse in an Irish context.

If you look at what Victoria state in Australia have done don't think there would be much objection from sports bodies in Ireland. They've done it very successfully by taxing cigarettes and using the additional revenue for promoting sport," says Howell.

Given the way National Lottery money was redirected away from sport by successive governments, that suggestion seems certain to die before conception. In Ireland the total retail value of tobacco was worth £845 million in 1995. Of that amount £661 million was tax, representing 76 per cent of the total amount.

FRANCE ALSO imposed their ban in 1992 and it led to the cancellation of a motor cycling grand prix. The epic Paris-Dakar Rally also suffered with a 50 per cent drop in entries as contestants could no longer chase their traditional tobacco backers. The scheme in France subsequently won approval when teenage smoking fell 15 per cent in the first three years of the ban.

But as European laws become more stringent the industry is also becoming more inventive, shifting their markets to countries where the regulations are more flexible. There have already been dark threats aimed at several European countries that stage Formula One events, suggesting that the races could be switched to "tobacco friendly" countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Korea and China if they could not accommodate the sponsor's needs.

In addition, Formula One, second only to soccer as the most global sport, is developing new technology which may enable it to hold on to its cigarette money, estimated at £100 million a year.

The Guardian reported this week that hi-tech computers are being developed by an Israeli company Orad which can turn track-side hoarding into virtual advertising. Depending on what countries are broadcasting the race, the brand names will be tailored to suit the markets and to comply with the different laws.

In countries where tobacco advertisement is banned, the space can be sold to more suitable advertisers. Spectators at the tracks would see nothing at all except blue boards which are used as backdrops to the electronic adds.

As the race is being screened a computer is programmed to pick up the prominent hoardings which have a specific digital signature linked to a specific advert. The space can be filled by different brands depending on the country.

Former world snooker champion Alex Higgins, nervously dragging on a cigarette, and former world darts champion Jockey Wilson, who once famously fell off the stage with his pint and fag, are images of the past that will never again be seen. John Parrott said this week that only one out of the top 16 snooker players smoke at all, again a reflection of changing trends.

The Irish Open golf event has managed to secure an excellent arrangement with Murphys and they do not have an annual five per cent levy eating away at the spending total. The Irish Masters snooker may soon have to follow suit.