EQUESTRIAN sports' international governing body has revised its so-called profit sharing policy far the 1998 World Equestrian Games (WEG) and will no longer cream off all the profits from the six-discipline fixture when it is staged in Ireland in two year's time.

The International Equestrian Federation (EEI) executive board, which met in Lausanne this week, has agreed that the first £1 million profit from the Games will be split, with 80 per cent going to the EEI and the remaining 20 per cent to Ireland's national Federation. Any profits over £1 million would be divided equally between the two bodies. Under the previous agreement the EEI would have taken all profits up to £3 million.

"We are very, very pleased with this," WEG Ireland's chief executive John Donlon said yesterday afternoon. WEG Ireland has actually budgeted for a £4 million profit from the two-week fixture, which will be staged jointly between the RDS and Punchestown, even though the 1994 Games in the Hague made a huge loss and the inaugural Games in Stockholm four years previously were baled out by the Swedish government.

"We are determined to return a profit and it is great to see that the EEI (Irish Federation) will benefit from the early phase of this profit and we're even more delighted that the remaining surplus will be divided 50-50," he said.

Although the EEI secretary general, Dr Bo Helander, would not reveal who had initiated the move, it is a safe assumption that FEI treasurer Conor Crowley, who stepped down as chairman of WEG Ireland earlier this year, was instrumental in bringing about the revised profit share.

"The new system is clearly an incentive for WEG to make a profit," Conor Crowley said. "It will do WEG a lot of good and it is also good for the EEI which will be seen to be caring for the national federation. It is only fair that the benefits should accrue to the national federation running the fixture."