Snooker’s real disgrace is failing to pay players for entertaining after John Higgins slams Ronnie O'Sullivan
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Updated 09/12/2021 at 14:46 GMT
There is no reason why professional snooker players should not be paid for losing a match in the first round of a tournament. Qualifying for the sport's main circuit is an outstanding level of success that should earn financial rewards as an accepted norm, writes Desmond Kane. Stream the Scottish Open and much more top snooker action live and on demand on discovery+
‘I thought it was a disgrace’ – Higgins slams O’Sullivan ‘don’t choose snooker’ comments
The language attached to professional sport continues to provide wonderful examples of gloriously unapologetic hyperbole.
Words like “disaster”, “fury”, “ignominy” and “absolute dross” have this week been trotted out to describe the England’s cricket team’s struggles during the Ashes first Test in Brisbane and Barcelona’s "humiliating" exit from the Champions League in Munich.
As ever, it is all nonsensical in comparison to real life tragedy and catastrophe, especially during times of a global pandemic, but sports scribes from time immemorial have always been given free rein to use exotic, over-the-top language in conveying what is seen through a sporting prism.
Yet it would hardly be fraternising with emotional embroidery to suggest professional snooker’s treatment of some of its financially struggling players is morally bankrupt and inherently damaging to the public image of a sport that has a mental health charter.
Ronnie O’Sullivan’s assertion during the Scottish Open that he would not want his son to pursue a living in snooker prompted the ire of his fellow world champion John Higgins, who described his old foe’s comments as a “disgrace” and “dreadful”, but something has got lost in translation between the potting patois of Chigwell and Wishaw when both men were essentially conveying the same message.
O’Sullivan was probably not suggesting he was against his son playing snooker for personal enjoyment with his mates in future. The point he was making was that as a career choice it might not be the wisest option when set against other solitary, more lucrative pursuits such as golf and tennis.
“It’s just timing I suppose. Maybe in another 25-30 years snooker might be back on top but at the moment I’d be like, 'go and get a job mate.' Forget playing snooker. That’s my honest opinion," said O'Sullivan.
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'Winners don't really need it' - O'Sullivan on how to remedy financial imbalances in game
I’m not talking about the winners. I’m talking about the guys that are ranked 60, 70 in the world that are struggling. It’s not good for them.
“If you compared the 125th golfer and what he earns and the 125th snooker player then he’d make a million dollars on the golf tour. You can afford to miss a few cuts because you can make enough money to offset the losses you might make.”
Higgins felt O’Sullivan’s train of thought was an abdication of duty to future generations, insisting Steve Davis or Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White would never have said something similar when he was a kid.
I was thinking to myself, if my dad had heard Jimmy White or Steve Davis saying, don’t let your kids get into it and I was wanting to play snooker, he’d say, nah, Steve Davis said you shouldn’t be playing snooker now so I’m not giving you the money to go down and practise.
There are merits to both points of view, but what cannot be disputed is that snooker has moved on, sometimes staggering on its feet to stay upright, from the time when Higgins and O’Sullivan were aiming to become the next Davis or White in the 1980s and the sport was a national obsession in the UK.
These days, like every other sport chasing a sprinkling of stardust and the financial oxygen of sponsorship, snooker is in the background compared to the all-conquering and all-consuming beast that is Premier League football.
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'Don't choose snooker' - O'Sullivan on advice to kids
To put snooker’s popularity into some kind of perspective, when Davis won the last three of his six world titles in 1987, 1988 and 1989, he snagged more money in those three years than golf’s Open champion – the £105,000 he enjoyed in 1989 dwarfed Mark Calcavecchia's £80k for lifting the Claret Jug.
When Mark Selby earned £500,000 for lifting his fourth world title this year, the champion golfer of the year Collin Morikawa collected around £1,567,818 at Sandwich. The sports have gone their separate ways financially.
"Snooker players are no longer noticed like they were in the 80s when they walked down a street,” Davis told me in an interview. “There are more TV channels, people have other things to do, but the viewing figures remain very healthy."
The standard has never been higher with tournaments increasing from eight to 16 under Barry Hearn's astute chairmanship of World Snooker between 2010 until 2021 and prize money swelling from around £3.5m to £15m over the past decade, but it has also regressed in the way it treats players who qualify for the professional tour.
Before he retired from the role this year, Hearn continually argued the point that professional sport is cut-throat and snooker is survival of the fittest.
“You mustn’t sponsor mediocrity,” said Hearn. “Sport is brutal, to get to the top you must have ability. The growth of prize money in snooker recently has predominantly been at the top end and that will generally continue.
“My next round of prize money increases will more be geared towards the lower levels, but with the caveat that first-round losers will still get nothing. That follows the golf model that if you don’t make the cut, you don’t get paid.
“We don’t pay a wage, we create opportunity to change your life. There has to be a threshold to find out if you’re good enough, and if you’re not good enough you should get another job.”
The problems seem obvious and are easy to solve. There is not enough money in snooker to fund tournaments of 128 players and the finances that are available should be used to ensure every professional appearing at an event is paid for their success in qualifying for the tour. That is hardly rewarding failure.
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‘There are too many players on tour!’ – Trump has his say on prize money issues
“There are too many players on the tour,” opined the world number two Judd Trump. “Snooker is not big enough to support that amount of people. They probably need to cut the tour a little bit so the money is a lot more fairer.
If you had maybe 96 players, 64 players playing off to play against the top 32, it gives you a chance against someone else, everyone gets money every tournament and you really feel like you are a professional that way.
The ongoing Welshman Dominic Dale was involved in a rollicking encounter with O’Sullivan in the first round of the Scottish Open on Monday that he lost 4-2. Having made breaks of 68 and 58, Dale looked set for a 3-2 lead after rolling in 52 only for his opponent to suddenly escape his torpor with exuberant runs of 77 and 132 securing progress.
Two players were involved in an enlivening match, but for his efforts and travel to Venue Cymru in Llandudno, Dale left with nothing. No money to cover his travelling expenses or hotel costs. There is nothing for losing in the first round, but O'Sullivan, the most successful player in the game's history, was guaranteed £3,000 for reaching the second round.
In several aspects, this sounds like tinpot stuff for a professional sport in modern times. Entertain, but earn nothing sounds absurd.
"30% of the tour can’t afford a loaf of bread. Either give players expenses or cut the tour and guarantee everybody dough," said the world number 43 Elliot Slessor, who has suffered financially damaging defeats in failing to qualify for the English Open, Scottish Open, UK Championship, German Masters and European Masters after earning £20,000 for his run to the British Open semi-finals in August.
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‘Bigger and better things!’ - Zhao seals UK Championship with another flourish
While Zhao Xintong tops the sport's one-year list with £206,000 after his rousing UK Championship success on Sunday, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, the bloke he defeated 6-5 on the black in the second round, occupies 64th spot with a paltry £12,500. The financial disparity is startling, farcical and arguably unfair between the summit and the game's lower reaches.
The argument against funding aspiring snooker players at least £1,000 to cover costs for appearing at a tournament does not make sense from a moral sense or a professional duty of care.
Rather than the trivial tête-à-tête between Higgins and O’Sullivan, the real disgrace in snooker is failing to pay players for providing large clumps of entertainment for free.
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