If I was in charge of Snooker...

...there are a few changes I would make.

World Cup

I would introduce a World Cup, for professionals and amateurs alike. It would have 3 players per team, and there would be a qualifying process to get down to 16 teams. They would then enter 4 groups of 4, with the top 2 advancing to the knockout stage. The matches would be held prime time in England, with groups held in different areas, before the Knockout Stage brings everything together.

Groups

Group A

To be played in London, England.

Group B

To be played in Newport, Wales.

Group C

- John Higgins, Graeme Dott, Stephen Hendry
- Neil Robertson, Steve Mifsud, Shawn Budd
- Tony Drago, Alex Borg, Simon Zammit
- Bob Chaperon, Alain Robidoux, Cliff Thorburn

To be played in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Group D

- Joe Swail, Mark Allen, Gerard Greene
- Ken Doherty, Michael Judge, Fergal O'Brien
- Marco Fu, Fung Kwok Wai, Au Chih Wai
- Yannick Poulain, Bernard Ballestera, Johan Lorek

To be played in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Matches are best of 9 frames, with each 3 players in one team, playing each 3 from the other team.

Each group would be played simultaneously. Matches would start at 2pm, and the host nation of the group would start at 7pm, since that is likely to be most spectator friendly.

After 3 days, therefore, there would be a rest day (Friday), which in truth, would be a travelling day, for arguments sake, to London, England for the Knockout Stage.

The Quarter Finals would be played over two days, the Friday night at 7pm, with the other three matches on Saturday, with matches starting at 10am in the morning, 2pm in the afternoon and the final match at 7pm.

The Semi Finals would be played on a Sunday, one at 2pm and one at 7pm.

The Final would be best of 9 frames on Bank Holiday Monday, starting at 7pm.

The total tournament length is only 8 days, it can be played from Sunday to Sunday a few weeks after the World Championship.

I think this would be a good thing for snooker, as it allows fans to see amateur players from developing nations, as well as the former Masters like those in the Canadian team.

The Tour

Currently, the tour has 8 events spread out throughout the year. It is a two year system, so it will total 16 events (depending on the number of events held in the other year). That is not enough to base a ranking system upon - the match length isn't long enough. But if you doubled the number of events to 32, then I think you'd have a fairer reflection. I would propose the following changes:

Current Events

Countries to Host Events

- Used to host an event, and there is a star player in Neil Robertson
- Star players like James Wattana, used to host the event, would be good for development
- former hotbed of talent, has a World Champion with Cliff Thorburn - used to have an event
- Another formerly good nation with the likes of Silvino Francisco, but now needs development
- There's so much of a market for another event in China - perhaps invitation only though (i.e. non ranking)
- Always had a strong amateur following - another huge market - may encourage others from Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc.
- At Prestatyn, I plan to move most of the qualifiers away from there (read below for why)

Possible Locations

- The only untapped big potential market
- A lot of amateur talent developing
- Robin Hull is waning, but the country still has talent
- Bjorn Haneveer is bringing the standard up
Template:Country data UnitedArabEmirates - Peter Ebdon lives in Dubai - might encourage a new market in a developing nation (both economically and in terms of snooker)
- Marco Fu is a top player, the country has talent, but question marks over size - then again, Malta is very small

I would also make changes to the make up of The Tour to encourage new players in newer markets.

The qualifiers for each event will be held in the country of the event. Prestatyn is a great facility, but it isn't fair that they are always in the same place. This will help other players enter the tournament.

Since an event takes one week (World Championship excepting, it takes two), a possible 15 events (Worlds included) would take 16 weeks, with one more for qualifiers and you have 32. With my proposed World Cup, you'd have enough for about 40 weeks of the year if you space everything out nicely.

Here's a tentative schedule to prove it's possible:

Event	Qualifiers	Event Date	Venue
Prestatyn Open	July 31-2	August 4-12	Prestatyn
Northern Ireland Trophy	August 14-16	August 18-26	Belfast
Grand Prix	August 28-30	September 2-10	Aberdeen
Shanghai Open	September 18-20	September 22-30	Shanghai
Australian Open	October 9-11	October 13-21	Melbourne
China Open	October 23-25	October 27-3	Beijing
Indian Open	November 5-7	November 9-17	New Delhi
Thailand Open	November 19-21	November 23-1	Bangkok
UK Championship	September 12-16	December 4-16	York
Welsh Open	January 15-17	January 19-27	Newport
The Masters		February 3-10	Wembley Arena
Canadian Open	February 12-14	February 16-24	Vancouver
Malta Cup	February 26-28	March 2-10	Portomaso
German Open	March 13-15	March 16-24	Munich
Belgian Open	March 26-28	March 30-6	Brussels
Irish Masters		April 7-13	Dublin
World Championship	January 7-13, April 14-17	April 19-5	Sheffield
World Cup	May 12-18	May 20-26	Various around Britain

There are 17 events, 14 of which are ranking events. This is really the limit of the season, unless qualifiers were brought much closer together, or held over one week and shortening each event to Monday to Sunday.

Player burnout isn't much of an issue, as you won't play in all the rounds of all the events. The weaker players will probably only ever play qualifiers, and the best will only play in the main event. So you're unlikely to have to hop on a plane to the next event to play a match two days after the last one on the other side of the world.

I also tried to keep the events in the same sort of place. After initial UK events, you go off to Asia and the Far East, before coming back to Europe around Christmas. After a non-ranking event in The Masters, you get the other long haul to Canada, but the qualifiers will be that week, and chances are they won't have played at Wembley.

It's a tight fit for the Irish Masters at the end, but it's doable - and it's a good warm up for the Crucible, which as ever finishes on the May Day Bank Holiday.

Qualifying dates for the proposed World Cup are nominal.

Structure

Main Tour

The top ranked 72 players from the last two seasons
The top 8 players from the European Tour
The top 2 players from the American Tour
The top 4 players from the Asian Tour
The top 2 players from the Oceanic Tour
8 wildcards from any tour, amateur establishment, or "relegated" player should there be no potential wildcard applicants.

Total = 96 players - the right amount - allows for 3 qualifying rounds. It also doesn't discriminate too much against the UK based players, who still make up most of the draw.

Amateur Tours

The biggest failing of the current system is that all the events in the feeder tour to the Main Tour are held in the same place in Wales every month. That's impossible for someone that lives in Canada to attend. So, I'd scrap that, and make three regional tours.

European Tour - have events in the UK mainly, but also in other amateur nations like Germany, France, Malta, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland...
American Tour - have events in the US and Canada to help develop the amateur game - perhaps fewer events than in Europe
Asian Tour - mainly based in China, but spread into the likes of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, Bahrain...
Oceanic Tour (including South Africa) - mainly in Australia, but also events in New Zealand and South Africa with the potential to expand into other African nations

The bottom 24 on the 2 year list would be relegated into these tours. This will boost the standard of the tours, and increase prize money. The tours are open entry for everyone, and since they are amateur will be very cheap to enter to enable anyone and everyone to take part.

The IBSF would be responsible for organising each tour.

Any player on the amateur tours will be able to enter:

Any event in his home country - they must enter before the 3 qualifying rounds in a series of preliminary contests until 16 remain
The World Championship - but again they must playoff down to 16 before going into the last 96.

Conclusion

I think these changes would only benefit the game of snooker. It would increase turnover, media attention, as well as develop the game around the world in big potential markets. Snooker will never beat the national games of many of these countries, but if it could move higher up in public opinion then it would be going a long way to assuring the sport's future. It would benefit the game massively, and truely globalise it.

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JuTMSY4Legend

900 days ago

Score 1

You deserve major props for how thorough this is... I'm not sure how much of a draw it would be in the US..."Table Games" (for lack of a better turn), don't always do it...but perhaps with the right flair it could have similar success to that of poker...

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer