The Five Nations are understood to have agreed a major sponsorship deal with a British financial services body covering all championship matches up to 2002. It would be the first time the sport's oldest international tournament has taken an official backer on board. The agreement, thought to be worth around £15 million, will give the sponsor - possibly Lloyds TSB Bank - advertising rights on perimeter hoardings (in addition to playing kit), a development that the English Rugby Union in particular has tended to resist strongly in the past.

That sum will drop from £600,000 a season for each nation to £500,000 a season when Italy is admitted to the competition in 2000.

The money comes on top of rugby's individual sponsorship deals. England, for instance, have secured huge financial support this season from Nike, Allied Dunbar and Tetley's Bitter.

Lloyds TSB were first mooted as a potential backer three months ago, although a spokesman said at the time: "We do not comment on speculation. If there is an announcement to be made, then we will make it at the proper time."

It is understood the new sponsorship will not prevent each nation from signing up an individual sponsor for its own championship games.

The TV exposure of the Five Nations official sponsor will be restricted to some degree by the fact that England's home games will be transmitted live and exclusively by Sky.

If England had negotiated a TV deal with a terrestrial channel which traditionally commands ratings of 8 to 12 million for international matches a far more substantial sponsorship could have been lined up by the Five Nations committee. Details of the sponsorship are expected to be announced tomorrow morning in London.

South Africa's controversial rugby supremo Louis Luyt was reelected to the sport's top position yesterday despite a potentiallydamaging probe by President Nelson Mandela's government into rugby finances.

Luyt was voted president of the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU) for the fifth consecutive year, gaining 30 of 47 eligible votes.

His only opponents, Mluleki George and Keith Parkinson, were heavily defeated with only seven votes apiece - and both failed to hold onto their previous positions on the union's executive.