Snooker Biggest Controversies Of 2024

on my Tombstone will not be written this is the man who took the World Championships away from The Crucible it's staying and it don't matter how much is involved and I have never said that once in my entire life does the history and the Nostalgia of The Crucible does that not mean something is there aren't there things in life that money cannot buy and that's no there well I think there are does money talk completely now or does history and Heritage still have a say no trust me money has the edge every time I mean that's just we live in the real world if there's deals out there that are going to change so back in October it was announced that the wenbo was going to be provisionally suspended due to alleged misconduct since then last year seven players were added to that suspension list including the 2021 master champion believe there's a few people's walking in the audience there look oh please be still this is this is the big shot black to Yellow it's there Q ball needs to slow up slow up slow up oh you're kidding me when you really think about it every single one of snooker's biggest problems have exactly the same root cause well all except for this one you see for the last 6 months or so somebody's been using an entire Army of AI chat Bots to attack World snooker's social media I don't know why this has been happening all I could find out is people thought it was a guy called Wayne but it's not a problem we have to worry about too much because the wst have simply fixed this problem by disabling the comments on their YouTube channel which which now means I can't complain that they're clearly stealing my idea with this video so the only thing I can do is talk about the real problems that involve money and don't worry we're starting with a big one moving the famous Crucible World Championships in Sheffield somewhere else possibly even abroad why would you do that well Sports promoter Barry Hearn has a pretty simple answer is it all about money is everything about money yes it doesn't mean to say it can't be a great experience to be there it doesn't mean to say it can't be the best sports event ever right that's it it's pretty much gone come 2027 you're going to be watching the World Championships from somewhere like ambor you don't even need me here anymore uh while I'm up then we might as well find Surman who's from alatar Mongolia congratulations your city may have just won the world championships for 20128 onwards actually we discover this year things are a little bit more complicated than that during the World Championship Steve Davis made a video for the BBC about prize money in which he revealed that he earned £5,000 more for winning the title back in 1987 then Nick falo did the same year for winning the Open Championship golf but in 2023 although Luca brell received half a million pound which alongside his girlfriend's lucrative side hustle was easily enough money for him to afford a Ferrari and two other fast cars the golf between the prize money of the golf now Rose to 2 and half million this time in favor of the golf and to tie in quite nicely the other two cars that Luca bought sadly weren't golfs and were in fact a Range Rover and a Porsche you can understand why players especially those with families to feed are desperate not to miss out on any prize money they could be getting but that's not their only concern at the moment husin vfi of Iran the Persian Prince now here's what he said history is very important but nobody invests any money in this historical venue you want to go somewhere really nice if you walk around The Crucible it smells really bad I'm honest everything is so bad hos lost early on in the tournament and it would be easy to say he's just looking for excuses but the facts are backstage like in the practice area area things are pretty tight as well and on top of that these spaces haven't really been updated since the tournament first started coming to Sheffield but it does seem that players concerns about the conditions are being slightly ignored in favor of getting more Spectators into one space here Steve Davis asks the question does snooker really need a plus- siiz crucible a 3,000 seater Crucible is great for maybe the final of the World Championship what about the first rounds and also what about the cruci bow for the rest of the weeks of the year when they're trying to put small plays on how I mean is that being selfish to Snoop I think it is and I'm going to be selfish because how realistic is it for a building like The Crucible to extend the capacity and make it round about 2,000 cuz 2,000's massive like Ali P's just under 2 and a half thousand for the Masters so it's not possible to in my view to do anything at all with The Crucible as it stand existing building we've got to be looking at another building in Sheffield which we can name The Crucible built with the same type of feel but I think we need 2 and a half to 3,000 seats to stand any chance of disregarding the type of offers we're getting from around the world Barry Hearn clearly wants Sheffield to build him a bigger Crucible theater even though this is unlikely to ever happen but let's just for a second imagine what if Barry Hearn getss exactly what he wants would a 3,000 seat Arena actually produce the revenue he's looking for and there's a belief that limiting Spectators to these 980 seats is somehow holding snooker back and if we look at the numbers this could well be true because if we estimate the average ticket price across the entirity of the tournament being £100 then the tournament will make in ticket sales alone nearly £5 million before costs and although tripling the amount of seats won't triple the revenue because some of those seats will be further away from the table and therefore probably be cheaper you can expect it to come close something else you need to know is most of the tickets for the 2025 tournament have been sold already almost an entire year in advance which means if they were to get a 3,000 seat Arena like World Snookers looking for the chances are they could fill it out the World Championships makes millions for the city of Sheffield every single year so it's well within their interests to build a crucible 2.0 but it's unlikely that Sheffield will be able to produce a venue like this before 2027 when its contract for The Crucible runs out so it's possibly a way of softening the blow of moving the tournament elsewhere there and at the moment it looks like there are just two options either the tournament moves to another venue in Sheffield or the tournament moves somewhere else entirely either way come 2027 it looks like days like this are numbered it's there he's on the black deliberately throwing matches in order to win bets is a problem that's been around for a very very long time but I genuinely believe that the 2022 match fixing Scandal that seemed to be centered around former disgraced player Lang Wen boo was one that was at least exaggerated by low prize money especially when you consider this mostly affected overseas players who needed to find a home in the UK as well as making a living on the tour by the way this carpet is absolutely phenomenal Sam you got to get a shot this you feel like you're going to sink about an inch and a half about these harsh and lengthy decisions like 14 months later Mark King still hasn't had a resolution on his case have seemingly solved the problem for now and allowed them to worry about this next one after losing to Steven Maguire at the World Championships sha Murphy was able to confirm that rumors about a breakaway tour mostly centered in Asia were more than just rumors which is worrying for snooker when you consider what happened with darts and the sh sharp fall of the BDO however this problem does appear to have been well dealt with by World Snooker and seems to be going away to start off with because they've allowed their players to play in unsanctioned events like this one in Hong Kong so long as they don't Clash with existing World Snooker tournaments but unfortunately their main way of dealing with this could give them even bigger problems in the future that's right to prevent a rival tour they've gone there first obviously snook has been criticized for even playing tournaments in Saudi Arabia and being seen to be happy to take dirty money and not really caring where it comes from but you could even argue and I think I am that working to create official tournaments in this region is helpful if not essential to avoid the threat of a rival tour and if the region creates its own tournaments like it has so far players who didn't want to play wouldn't even have to take part and I can only see it creating minor problems a good example of this is dress codes if a player isn't allowed to wear colorful clothing during these tournaments that could become Universal across the entirety of the season and in the future I can definitely see the influence of money giving people power over the game that cause a lot bigger tensions than that but they're unlikely to cause long-term problems to the game whereas moving a tournament to somewhere like Saudi Arabia or somewhere else in the world could have more serious long-term consequences and there is definitely a lot to worry about out even if you completely ignore the people who can't watch the game without a drink and trust me no one would that be more of a problem for than this guy but the fact is you can't buy and simply move the prestige and Nostalgia that comes with these tournaments what if snooker's limited but significant popularity around the entire world is in part or mostly because of how much investors think snooker popular in the UK UK and what if snooker's popular in the UK because of how easy it is to watch I've noticed with this very YouTube channel that snooker isn't necessarily something people choose to watch but is something people can't stop watching once they start something we definitely shouldn't Overlook is there's a lot of fans of snooker and snooker players in Saudi Arabia although how many of these could afford tickets to go and watch the snooker it's a completely different question but I think the main question is what if there's more to a tournament's popularity than its name what if location and ease of viewing make a huge difference and what if somebody takes the tournament halfway around the world and discovers they've only bought the name and not the phenomena history just is getting Rewritten every day really you know so I think you know if and Barry and well snooker decide that it's right for snooker to take it to Saudi Arabia why not and finally we come to the biggest problem that I think's being completely overlooked the fact in the UK at least and if you live in the UK you'll be aware of this there are a lot of places where you simply can't get on a table at all what's interesting with snooker at the moment is the age of players at the top of the game to the point where we still think of Jud Trump as being a youngster alongside the demise of snooker clubs in the country are we also looking at a reduction in numbers coming through as somebody who lives in the UK I genuinely hope this isn't as big a problem as I fear because it could mean that our time of having players at the top of the sport is coming to an end so after all that what do we learn well harsh sentences seem to have put an end to match fixing at least for now alongside higher prize money which has been obtained in part by going to the places a rival tour would have gone and taking the money first but is there a better way to earn this money now ever since Kazo decided it wasn't going to be doing so well almost every single snooker tournament has a gambling spot and in the past things weren't exactly any better is it possible that these associations are the very thing that's putting off more legitimate and safe forms of investment or maybe Olympic or government style support for snooker it's just something that was never going to happen and the sport had no choice but to look for sponsors anywhere it could find them which means we're now in the happy position where it looks like snooker and its entire history are in the process of being auctioned off to the highest bidder well this video has been a little bit depressing hasn't it so if you want to see something that's a little bit more exciting have a look at these two featuring the best shots from the world championships and the season as a whole and remember don't just watch play and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website see you later