When a Just Stop Oil activist disrupted the world championship snooker match between Joe Perry and Robert Milkins in its early stages on Monday night, the players looked suitably bemused. Simply going about their cue-swinging business before the table was rendered unplayable, they could have been forgiven for wondering why a pair of mild-mannered, middle-aged snooker players were being targeted by the protest group in their drive to “stop all new UK fossil fuel projects”, and their calls for “UK sporting institutions to step into civil resistance against the government’s genocidal policies”.
Of course it was nothing personal and it might have been any two players inconvenienced, as the unsuccessful attempt of another activist to simultaneously vandalise the adjacent table at the Crucible showed. The protesters simply wished to raise awareness of their cause, an ambition they can argue was achieved successfully, given it was the subject of widespread international media coverage and I’m writing about it several days later.
PT Barnum famously declared that there is no such thing as bad publicity but the American showman might have revised his opinion on seeing Monday’s events unfold. While there’s no doubt they have their supporters, the protesters’ actions have been roundly criticised, and one suspects none of the snooker fans present in the theatre or watching at home will be rushing to glue their hands to the Sheffield Parkway dual carriageway in solidarity any time soon.
They may, however, be heading to the small claims court, now that the irascible Matchroom Sport promoter Barry Hearn has invited those whose evening’s entertainment was ruined to join him in a civil action he has promised to fund to attempt to recoup their ticket costs and sundry expenses incurred in getting to the game, from “that young man”.
The cloud that briefly enveloped the table on Monday night isn’t the only one under which this year’s world championship is being played. On Monday, a hearing into alleged match-fixing by 10 Chinese professional players will begin and play out in tandem with the far more edifying spectacle unfolding at the Crucible.
In the biggest match-fixing scandal ever to darken the sport, former Masters champion Yan Bingtao and the 2021 UK champion, Zhao Xintong, are the two most high-profile players hauled up before snooker’s beaks in a process that could result in all concerned receiving lengthy and possibly career-ending bans.
Meanwhile in the most recent of his impassioned rants about the state of snooker and how appalling it all is, Ronnie O’Sullivan stated that the current annual prize pot is nowhere enough for players lower down the rankings on the 128-man (plus two women) tour to earn a decent living, and called for an increase.
“When you look at the numbers, it’s bad,” he said. “When you look at the £10m prize money for 25 events across the year for 128 players, it’s never going to be good. It needs at least triple that to make it work.” Two years ago, Elliot Slessor, the world No 60, put it more succinctly when he tweeted that “30% of the tour can’t afford a loaf of bread”.
When O’Sullivan goes off on one like that it’s always tempting to roll one’s eyes and dismiss whatever he has to say on the grounds it’s just Ronnie being Ronnie, but this is a drum he has beaten loudly and repeatedly like Keith Moon on amphetamines. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he is correct.
Hearn could, and probably has, argued that he can’t magic that kind of money out of thin air. He has in the past pointed out that since coming under his Matchroom umbrella in 2010, annual prize money has increased by more than £10m to £15m. In recent years that figure has been reduced to £11m, since China stopped hosting annual tournaments due to the Covid pandemic.
It has recently been announced that the snooker-loopy nation will retake its place on the circuit and will host three tournaments – two of them ranking events – later this year. Closer to home, in an initiative announced by the World Snooker Tour and WPSBA last year, all 130 players on the tour are guaranteed to earn a fairly paltry but considerably-better-than-nothing £20,000 this year.
For many lower down the rankings, all of whom are excellent players in a sport where skill levels continue to scale unprecedented heights, competing in tournaments often ends up costing them money, so at least this guaranteed annual stipend will go a long way towards keeping the wolf from the door.
Along with increased prize money, a little more money dispensed more fairly among the players could also help some resist the temptation of match-fixing in a sport where it might seem easy (but apparently isn’t) to manipulate frame or match outcomes, as concerns continue to mount over the influence of Asian organised crime in snooker. While player poverty might constitute a reason to cheat, it is certainly nothing in the way of a valid excuse. O’Sullivan and other high-earners have repeatedly said they would have no problem in effecting a smaller slice of the prize money pie.
Monday’s disruption aside, on the tables this world championship is shaping up as one of the greatest and from a playing perspective it seems the sport has never enjoyed more rude health. Fans have been treated to new faces, apparently age-defying evergreen old ones, first-round upsets, a maximum 147, back-to-back 146s, a high-profile needle match and that scarcely believable Luca Brecel pot and swerve back which has already been hailed as the shot of the tournament with over a week to go. While O’Sullivan argues snooker is in the worst place its been, it could be argued it is, in fact, in the best.
