AFTER checking the time sponsored by Accurist, I tuned into ITV's On The Ball, brought to me by Coca Cola. This has all the footie gossip, whether from Bolton's Reebok Stadium in the Carling Premiership or Scarborough's McCain Stadium in the Nationwide Conference.

On last Saturday's show, I was particularly interested in the Axa-sponsored FA Cup (so much more exciting than the Worthington Cup). No doubt the pundits would be discussing the match of the day: Evening Press v Pizza Hut (or to give them their formal names, York City v Fulham)...

Hmm. Is this sponsorship lark getting out of hand, do you think?

In money-mad football, it is an epidemic. With great luck, I managed to get my hands on a ticket for the City-Fulham FA Cup clash. And I noticed the Bootham Crescent announcer spent more time reading out the names of the sponsors than those of the players. Yet the club still loses more than 20 grand a week.

Of course, you wouldn't have known the Minstermen's jobs were on the line. Our lads, in their Evening Press shirts, came close to delivering a headline-grabbing victory, but the Pizza Hut wideboys had the slice of luck they needed.

If sponsorship deals can help City survive, who could be a better saviour than motor racing boss John Batchelor? Motor sport is even more obsessed with brand names than football. A grand prix is little more than a competition between two dozen supersonic cigarette packets. Mr Batchelor even changed his name to John B&Q to promote his racing team. Perhaps he's now backed by a brand of soup.

Sponsorship deals are an accepted, if sometimes irritating, part of sport. More worrying is the trend which sees every part of public life up for sale.

Take the Millennium Dome ("Please!" as Tony Blair might quip). This began life as an artistic vision, a chance to celebrate our impressive little nation at a key moment in time.

The Dome ended up as the biggest billboard in history. All the effort went into attracting and pleasing the corporate sponsors; no wonder it possessed less creativity than a motorway service station.

Sponsorship is becoming omnipotent, so we shouldn't be surprised that the Dean and Chapter of York are looking for firms to sponsor the Minster. Imagine it: the Dean, resplendent in a cassock emblazoned with the Heinz logo ("Deanz meanz Heinz"), asks the congregation to say the 23rd psalm, "the Lord is my Shepherd Building Group", before singing "Praise My Soul The Burger King Of Heaven".

More worrying is the widely-held belief that our politicians' integrity can be bought. I'm not talking about the way the unions sponsor Labour MPs, because that's all above board (by the way, well done to the RMT for threatening to withdraw funding from MPs, Hugh Bayley among them, for failing to support members in the current disputes).

But big business payments, the insidious "cash-for-influence", is a genuine threat to democracy.

Bankrupt energy corporation Enron contributed $500,000 to George Bush's campaigns. When president, he opted out of the Kyoto treaty on climate change, to the delight of the energy lobby.

Enron also paid thousands of pounds to the Labour Party. It promptly allowed Enron to take over Wessex Water without a Monopolies Commission investigation; and then reversed its ban on the building of gas-fired power stations. Coincidence?

There is a way to end this financial quagmire: introduce state funding of political parties. Then our politicians would be beholden to a different set of financiers: us.

Funnily enough, they don't seem too keen on the idea.

Updated: 10:44 Wednesday, January 30, 2002