Snooker is just the latest sport to succumb to the eye-watering sums of money on offer from authoritarian regimes. Saudi Arabia will host its first ranking event in August, with a £2 million prize fund – the highest of any tournament outside the World Championship. It follows the Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker, held in March, which came complete with a new ‘golden ball’ and a maximum break of 167 – a crass addition to a game that usually takes pride in its traditions. A massive $500,000 jackpot bonus was offered to any player who could pot the golden ball. Steve Dawson, the chairman of the World Snooker Tour, admitted it was: ‘something we have never seen in 150 years since snooker was invented.’ But what price history when there’s big money to be made?
‘I want to be pampered. Anyone wants to pamper me, I’m your man’
All of the top snooker stars have signed up to play, and several of them came out in support of the opportunity to earn more money. ‘I don’t get involved in any of the politics, no matter where I play,’ Mark Allen said, according to the BBC. ‘It’s just the way I am. I’m here to provide for my family and my family’s future and get more money. That’s all I’m worried about.’ That’s certainly one way of looking at it. It’s simply a case of following the money, and the Saudis have oodles of it.
Meanwhile, the seven-time world champion Ronnie O’ Sullivan has been signed up to a three-year ambassadorial role by the Saudis. This is how he puts it: ‘I want to be looked after. I want to be pampered. Anyone wants to pamper me, I’m your man.’ The Saudis are more than ready to do as much pampering as it takes. The bigger question is what the Saudis might want in return for their dosh, in particular what kind of control they might seek over the future of the sport. Is anyone involved in snooker even asking the question? Is, for example, the new golden ball simply a one-off gimmick, or a prelude to dispensing with other snooker’s rules and traditions?
Just as significant is the question of what happens to the World Snooker Championship itself and its historic base at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Could the Saudis acquire the rights and move the tournament to the Middle East? Is that the real end game? The current contract to host the event in Sheffield runs until 2027 – 50 years after it was first held there.
The Crucible is more than just a venue; it is snooker’s spiritual home, serving as the backdrop to some of the sport’s most memorable moments, including Alex Higgins’s emotional triumph in 1982. The 1985 black-ball final was watched by a huge television audience of 18.5 million people. Even so, the facilities are outdated and the venue cramped. In other words, a solution needs to be found and soon.
The Saudis, naturally enough, may offer one, with Turki Alalshikh – one of the most powerful figures in Saudi sport – rumoured to be taking an interest. Lurking in the wings is China, also rather keen on developing its growing links with snooker, which first gained a foothold in the country during the 1980s. China hosted the World Open in March, with other tournaments in the offing. Snooker is not short of unsavoury regimes with deep pockets, prompting questions about whether the sport is in danger of selling its soul.
Lurking behind such questions is the broader issue of ‘sportswashing’ – whereby autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia invest vast sums in the sports sector. It is a form of reputation laundering, using high-profile events to project a favourable image of a country around the world, and in the process help to draw attention away from any wrongdoing. In the case of Saudi Arabia, that means using big sport to suggest that the country is a benign and normal place rather than a living hell for political dissidents and women seeking equal rights.
Snooker, in welcoming the embrace of the Saudis, is merely following in the footsteps of football, boxing and golf. The tragedy is that no one in the sport – from its governing bodies to its superstars – appears to care too much about the implications and consequences of selling out to the Saudis and other autocratic regimes.
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